


Christmas in the Garden of Good and Evil

by the_desk_fairy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BDSM, BDSM Scene, Christmas Presents, Cunnilingus, Dealing With Trauma, Exhibitionism, F/M, Fantasy BDSM Party, For anyone who is really missing going to parties, Friends as chosen family, GRSecretSpy, Ghosts?, HEA, Historic District of Savannah, Kinbaku, Naked Female Clothed Male, Penis In Vagina Sex, Sex as Therapy, Shibari, Southern Mansion, Spanking, Voyeurism, bdsm furniture, dom!hux, lingerie shopping, semenawa, sub!rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:34:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28310949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_desk_fairy/pseuds/the_desk_fairy
Summary: Five friends. One mysterious Christmas party in a strange mansion just outside of Savannah, Georgia.What Rose finds inside among the sensual shadows will either haunt her or heal her.Maybe both.Grab a mint julep and step into the South’s ephemeral magic for a little Christmas GingerRose.(Complete, updated every day between Christmas and New Years.)
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico, Kaydel Ko Connix/Beaumont Kin, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 53
Kudos: 65
Collections: Gingerose Holiday Exchange 2020: Secret Spy





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [no_big_deal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/no_big_deal/gifts).



> An enormous thank you and happy holidays to @ElfMaidenofLight and @phelfromgrace for editing this work! Seriously, y’all helped me to hone my craft. I really appreciate you both and hope you’re having a lovely, restful holiday.

My mother said the dead are still with us.

She was trying to explain why my grandmother babbled on and on to the empty blue recliner chair in the living room. 

“ Your bà ngoại isn’t crazy,” she said, scolding my judgemental eye.

“But he’s gone,” I replied. “Why is she still talking to him?”

They lowered him into the ground; I saw it. My sister Paige and I wore scratchy white dresses. We waved our smelly incense sticks over that deep pit and we blew three times. Then, the motor lowering that glossy box with my  ông ngoại inside started whirring loudly and I cried.

“No one is ever gone,” my mother said.

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I knew better than to bother her with my questions. Not before her double shift, anyway. Paige thought maybe it meant that people who die change into something else, like the Power Rangers. She and I spent a lot of time translating our Vietnamese heritage through the lense of after-school shows on PBS.

Of course, I don’t believe that ghost stuff anymore. 

People die. They just do.

The frenetic business of my job and the constant noise of the City that Never Sleeps has been loud enough in my brain to push out my mother’s words, even after she died. And then when Paige died, my therapist told me to let her go. 

I’ve been trying so hard to do that.

I was doing fine, holding my shit together until my friends and I landed at Hilton Head International Airport. It’s not like I was even thinking about death or ghosts or anything —I was reading the New York Times, for goodness sake. But the instant our Lyft ride dips off the freeway into Old Savannah, I feel something.

When we step out into the street, I know somebody is there. Somebody  _ besides _ me, my four friends and the strangers milling about the opulent rows of Victorian gingerbread mansions.

Aside from the hair standing up on the back of my neck, Savanna, Georgia is gorgeous.

I walk down the uneven sidewalk, my jaw practically dragging on the pavement. My carry-on bumps along behind me unnoticed.

Each house on Abercorn Street is more precocious than the last. They’re two-story, gaudy belles, flaunting their French details and wearing handsome shades of weathered brick or curved plaster painted salmon, ochre, or robin’s egg blue. Thick hedges of azaleas spill over iron gates while roses nod demurely from their prickly vines climbing up textured walls. Greek columns heft grand balconies overlooking the squares.

My god, the squares.

Every block or so, the city’s founder, James Oglethorpe, placed a slice of greenery: rich, lush little gardens for the musings of the city’s residents. We pass through several before I stop at Monterey Square and stare up at the lonely obelisk jutting up in its center. 

An icy chill washes over me and I shiver.

Mist wreaths the angelic wings adorning the Pulaski monument. Valences of Spanish moss float from oak branches, breathing up and down in the breeze like frayed curtains.

“Keep up, Rose!” Rey calls. Her suitcase rollers clatter to a halt. When my gaze breaks free from the Pulaski monument’s spell, she’s motioning for me to follow. Pink stains her fair cheeks. She’s got a white puffer coat and hat with a fur pom-pom: a total ski bunny outfit, despite the fact Savannah never gets snow.

“So beautiful,” she murmurs, nodding at Monterey Square.

We brisk down the cracked sidewalk to catch up with Kaydel, Finn and Poe. Our breaths fog in the moonlight like ghostly plumes.

“This whole place feels like a dream,” I say.

“Lord, this has been my dream as long as I can remember!” Rey beams. “Christmas with a real family, and in a mansion, no less!”

 _Family._ I bite the inside of my cheek like it will keep the word from stinging me. With a swallow, I shove down my feelings.

“Yeah, there’s really nothing like it.” I let a sad smile creep across my face.

Rey’s grin melts into horror.

“Oh god, I didn’t mean…”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I’d rather not walk on eggshells. It’s your first Christmas with a family, it’s my first Christmas without mine. Now I’ve said it, now it’s out of the way and we can enjoy ourselves.”

Rey eases with relief. She squeezes my arm, letting her grasp linger for a comforting moment.

“Besides.” I smile bravely. “Paige would want me to put myself out there at this party Kaydel keeps talking about. She’d tell me to go shag some Southern gentleman.”

Rey laughs in a depressurizing burst.

“I’m not looking for anyone at the party,” she replies. “I just want to open presents on Christmas morning with a mum and dad, and I don’t care whose! Is that odd?”

My nose wrinkles. I love Rey’s British accent; the way she says odd, like “ _awd_ ” is so cute. She hits the D sound at the end of the word like a bird landing on a lake. 

“Um, yeah,” I giggle. “Stealing someone’s parents is a little creepy!”

Her puffer-coat elbow jabs me good-naturedly; a stark beam of lamppost light falls across her pretend scowl. 

“Spoilsport!”

“Now I’m imagining you jumping into Kaydel’s family Christmas photo!”

“Well, maybe I will!” Rey pinches the thick part of my arm and I squeal.

We fill the darkened streets with the echoes of teasing laughter.

  
  


The Connixes are not an old Savannah family, but they know how to keep a historic house like one. 

The Edwardian wallpaper in the drawing room is peeling, but it comes away in such charming patches; I admire the choice to leave it just so. Elegantly carved antique furniture frames a sitting area before the hearth. On the mantle, silver platters and candlesticks reflect the gently-lit glow. Bing Crosby croons in the background.

“Oh my...!” 

Rey stiffens beside me as we step into the soft, twinkling resplendence of the most enormous Christmas tree I’ve ever seen inside a home. It’s not just floor to ceiling, it’s bushy as a bottlebrush and crammed with every kind of ornament. Fancy glass snowdrops and vintage reindeer mingle with hideous clay handprints and jeweled photo cases with Kaydel and her brothers at various ages. This isn’t a posh tree from the mall, it’s a family tree and it’s making Rey’s eyes water.

“Isn’t that something?” Finn comes up behind us.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him bump up against Rey, giving her hand a squeeze. 

The last dregs of faded jealousy stir up inside my stomach, but I force them down. Of course Finn knows how much this means to Rey. 

I can forget kissing him, forget that he turned me down last spring because he had (and obviously still has) feelings for her. He deals with Rey’s unreciprocated attraction, like I dealt with his. We’re all friends here; it’s fine.

“It’s so lovely of Kay’s friends to join us this year.” Kaydel’s mother flutters across the parlor and wraps me in a full-bosomed hug. A jingle bell sewed onto her red and green sweater jabs my cheek as I come up for air.

“Thank you for having us, Mrs. Connix,” I reply.

“Call me Eunice, dear,” she chortles. “Well, isn’t it a delight to have a full house for Christmas? With the twins off on a trip to Chile over the break, it would have been too quiet with just Kay coming home! Not that she’s the quiet one.” Eunice winks. Her cherry cheeks and rosy lips are everything a Mrs. Claus should be.

“Really, mother…” Kaydel rolls her eyes and introduces us one by one to her whimsical mom and soft-edged, bespectacled dad. “I invited my friends so they could come with me to Ben’s Christmas party this year.”

“Oh yes, the clandestine Christmas party!” Eunice waggles her eyebrows. “I don’t understand why your cousin won’t throw a family party at that lovely old place he’s got now.”

“Believe me, mother, Ben is _not_ into family parties,” Kaydel scoffs.

An indecipherable look passes between Kaydel and Eunice, but I’m too tired to try and figure it out. So far, Kaydel has been extremely cagey about this party, I have no idea what it’s all about. 

“I’ll tell you when we get there,” she had said. “I’ll arrange everything, don’t worry about it. Just trust me, _you need this._ ”

“At any rate,” Eunice says, brightening, “We’re lucky to spend the holiday with you all!”

“Kaydel has a talent for collecting strays,” Poe remarks.

“Miss Rey, Kay told us this is your first family Christmas!” Eunice gushes, pulling Rey into a pillowy hug.

“ _Mother…_ ” Kaydel warns.

“It’s alright.” Rey gives Kaydel a gracious little curve of her lips. “My parents died when I was very small.” She briefly explains her history to the Connixes. “I’m honored to join your celebration.”

“You will always have a family with us, dear,” Eunice declares, eyes glassy with sympathetic tears.

“Any friend of Kay’s is our family,” Kaydel’s father echoes.

Everyone encircles Rey, with the energy, if not the outright contact, of a group hug. I’m left on the outside, staring numbly into the stunned, slack-jawed gaze of a vintage Nutcracker on the shelf. An inane chorus of “fa la la las” fade and warp in the background. 

My vision blurs with moisture. 

I understand that it’s easier for everyone in the room to focus on Rey and giving her the best Christmas. Rey has had a lifetime to figure out how to talk about losing her parents; she articulates her loss in a way that others can connect with.

But my mom’s been gone for two years, and I lost Paige only six months ago. They were my only family left and my last link to my culture.

It’s all still too raw for me. I don’t just bring it up at random times. I might cry, like _really_ cry. Wail. 

My grief is awkward and unrelatable.

I’ve already done the bulk of the work saying goodbye to Paige, and my friends were there for me through everything. Six months later, however, they seem unsure how to talk about it. It’s as if they’re paralyzed because I’m still processing it, but there’s nothing more they can do or fix for me. They’re not sure how I’ll react if they bring up Paige, so they say nothing. In fact, I’ve felt a little avoided lately.

Everyone seems perfectly attentive to Rey’s feelings, however.

Anger starts to bubble in my gut.

I want to scream: _my family is gone too!_

The cheery, Christmassy room and all its merry occupants tilt around Rey’s axis like she’s fucking Tiny Tim, and I’m left in the corner with my nasty feelings like a rotten Grinch.

“I’d like to turn in now,” I say quietly.

The room continues to buzz with happy chatter.

“Hey Rose,” Poe calls with a dopey grin. “Rey’s never been Christmas caroling!”

My anger boils over.

“And she never will if I don’t get some FUCKING SLEEP!”

All sound immediately dies, except for the thin warble of the radio. 

Six sets of eyes land on me.

“Sorry.” I start to tear up. “I’m super tired.”

Eunice rushes to rescue the moment.

“Of course, my dear, you must be exhausted!” She clasps my hand warmly and nods to the others. “Rooms are right this way!”

I follow mutely up a set of creaky, wooden stairs, trying to ignore the incredulous stares of my friends burning holes in my back.

I know what they think. I’m ruining the vibe, poisoning the Christmas cheer.

_I’m a nasty, wasty skunk._

  
  


Rey slides into the double bed next to me.

The downstairs still murmurs and thuds with life: Finn’s laugh, Poe’s muffled voice and Kaydel’s ironic titter.

Rey rustles around with the ruffly, old-lady bedding for a moment.

Then she reaches across the bed.

“Sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” I say coldly, not turning over.

“You miss her. Paige. It’s your first Christmas without her.”

Rey scoots across the bed until she’s spooning me. It’s something Paige would have done, and Rey knows it.

“Ugh, stop.” I swat at her, but I don’t move away.

She doesn’t reply, and eventually I can’t hold back the heavy sniff. There’s a growing damp, soaked spot in the pillow under my eye. 

Rey says nothing. She wraps her arm around me and we drift off to sleep.

I awaken in the morning with less heaviness in the pit of my stomach. 

I’m still haunted by the ghost of Christmas past, or present, or whatever, but when I sit up, there’s Rey: tangled up in the crisp, scalloped lace sheets. Her hair is wild and her mouth drools slightly. I can’t help but smile a little.

A bright, clear light pours in from two gorgeous drop-sash windows. Between the quaint floral wallpaper and the white crown molding, the room has a Parisian elegance. Only the tingle in my spine tells me this is most definitely Savannah. The space carries a dark, lurking mystique that lives in edges and corners of things: the shadowed glances of the Victorian portraits, the glimmering fractals reflected on the wall through a cut-glass candy dish.

I shiver.

A loud crack from the painted door nearly scares me out of my skin.

Kaydel swoops into the bedroom and flops onto the end of the bed with a heavy squeak. She’s wearing nauseatingly cute snowflake jammies; her loose blonde curls splash down her back.

“Wake up, assholes!” 

She pinches a lump that looks like Rey’s foot.

“Ow!” Rey sits, mumbling British slurs.

“I’m taking you shopping, my treat!” Kaydel announces. Her doe-like brown eyes take on a mischievous sparkle. “It’s for the _party_!”

“Won’t you tell us anything about this party, Kaydel?” Rey asks muzzily, still waking up.

Kaydel pretends to zip her mouth shut.

“My lips are sealed!”

“I could use a new dress, honestly,” I admit. I hadn’t felt like shopping for a long time.

“Oh my dear… dear sweet Rose.” Kaydel crawls up the bed and takes my cheeks in her hands. Her lips slant into a teasing smile, like she has a most delicious secret. “You won’t be wearing this outfit anywhere else, and maybe never again if things go the way they did last year.”

Rey is fully awake now.

“What the devil does that mean?” 

My brows knit. If I’m forced to attend some crazy rager, I wonder if I’m gonna feel worse.

“What sort of a Christmas party is this, Kaydel?” My voice edges with alarm. “I really need to know.”

“Um… I think you might have an idea when we get to the shop,” she teases.

“I can’t take the suspense.” Rey throws her legs over the edge of the bed and wriggles into her jeans. “How soon do they open?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @No_big_deal, this shopping scene is just for you! I hope you get the chance soon to treat yourself to fun shopping, I know it’s been a while since I did! Hugs from afar!!

The store is in the Midtown District. On Habersham Street, we pass rows of cute brick townhouses, patisserie-style bakeries and hip gastropubs before finding a parking spot. Live oaks, dripping with curling, green tendrils of Spanish moss, cloak the streets with reaching branches.

“You’re going to love this shop, everything is made by independent designers,” Kaydel chatters happily.

“Will we be able to afford this stuff, Kaydel?” Rey asks.

“My treat, remember? I didn’t get a giant bonus for nothing.”

“Oh Kaydel…” I gasp.

We’re standing before a brick shop front with two big rose bushes planted in pots on either side of the door. Delicate paper snowflakes hang in the large window where black velvet dress forms stand in front of a silk curtain.

On each dress form is a lacy, bold little thing that fills me with absurd delight. This isn’t the cheap stuff that pops up in my Instagram ads. They’re whispering, skimming, frothing, plunging, lifting, plumping, teasing, begging. Holy shit, I’m supposed to wear something like that? _At a party?_

The sign above the door reads in elaborate script: _La Belle et La Bête_. 

“Hm.” Rey says, “Beauty and the Beast.”

“At least I know which one I am…” I moan.

“That’s right! Get it, you sexy beast!” Kaydel says, her tone distinctly instructing me to bring a better attitude. She makes a tiger noise at me and flings open the door.

Inside, the store looks like a high-end brothel. Jasmine and vetiver hit my nose the second my steps hush across the glossy floor. The sales floor is dark with pools of light falling on the walls’ mahogany paneling. Every few feet, vintage nude drawings cast us tempting glances. 

Each section of the store has a clear theme. Rey flutters to an array of floaty, angelic garments in whites, golds and silvers. She lifts a breathy, pink bodysuit with delicate lace spanning between structured piping.

“Cute!” she mouths the word to me. 

Kaydel quickly loses herself in a dark wing of the shop guarded by a tasteful mannequin wearing a strappy piece made of a gajillion different strips of leather. I’m sure I’d accidentally choke myself trying to put that on.

“Welcome, can I get you girls something to drink?” A gorgeous, tall Black woman with a daring shade of red on her lips appears from nowhere. A glass of champagne appears in my hand before I learn her name.

“I’m Maz, can I get a fitting room all ready for you ladies?”

“Oh yes!” Kaydel already has about forty hangers on her arm.

“And what are you looking for, lovely?” Maz’s knowing gaze settles on me.

“I…” I stammer. “I’m not sure.” 

Something between curiosity and embarrassment floods my cheeks.

“I have some ideas, if you are interested?” she offers unassumingly.

“Yeah,” I agree. “You are the expert, after all!” I want to kick myself for sounding so goofy.

The kindness in Maz’s smile instantly thaws my self doubt.

“Come with me.”

I follow her through a circular hall of dressing rooms and back to a dramatic, vaulted area with a mirror that must be two stories tall. The looking glass sits neatly against the brick wall as if I’m just a mouse and it’s the proper size. Two long, blush velvet divans perch against the other side of the VIP fitting area. Hanging pendant lights illuminate the lower half of the space, adding intimacy. Maz drifts to a vintage sideboard and opens a record player, putting on something jazzy and festive.

“Why don’t you get comfortable, and I’ll take your measurements?”

“Okay.” My heart flutters for some reason. 

I ask myself what it means as Maz wraps her measuring tape around the frayed bottom edge of my sports bra (damn Kaydel for not telling us where we were going). I tell her what sizes I wear and she immediately suggests I switch to a tighter band with a larger cup. 

Maz tells me that Kaydel has already explained the nature of the party we’ll be attending.

“Do you have a personality in mind?” she asks.

“Oh…” I throw a furtive glance at myself in the mirror. “Hm. Sweet, I guess? Fun?”

“Top or bottom?”

I’m confused.

“Um, probably best to cover both?”

“I’m talking about something else,” Maz chuckles. “But I think you’ll figure it out on your own.”

She winds up her measuring ribbon, her thoughtful gaze settled on me like she’s sifting my soul. Finally, she smiles.

“I’ll be back shortly.”

When she’s gone, I sink into the foot of the divan and stare at myself in the mirror. My golden skin glows in the sultry light. The edges of me have a little more give lately, since I’ve been less motivated in general, but I’ve always been fond of my softness.

Lately, I haven’t given much thought to how I look. I deleted my Tinder profile last year and tried to focus on making it through. Kinda hard to meet guys when you spend every waking minute outside of work in the oncology wing of the hospital for the better part of a year. 

An unfamiliar giddiness flutters in my stomach. This might be really nice.

The outfits Maz lines up on the rack make my head spin. Never in a million years would I pick these out. Before I can protest, she offers warmly to be back in a little while to check in. Then, she disappears through the velvet curtain.

I suck in a breath and slip on the first choice.

It’s a black teddie with scalloped eyelash lace cutting a deep V almost to my navel. It must be some kind of French lingerie magic, but the unlined garment still gives my bust incredible lift. The neckline is just wide enough to coquettishly hide the inside of my tits, but the thing offers a tasty little slice of sideboob. Classy in the front, teasing from afar. Love it.

Maz paired the teddie with a flouncing, half-sheer ballerina skirt. Ultimately, I decide this piece rides up my ass too much and I wouldn’t want to dance like that.

I mean, I assume it’s a dancing sort of party… right?

The next choice is a red, structured bustier of thick mesh embroidered with floral vines for a monochromatic, textured look. I feel sleek and smoothed out in the stretchy fabric and thin boning. With a black satin high-low skirt over the top, it looks like I should be accepting an Oscar or something. I grin at myself in the mirror and flounce a little.

There’s a sheer bodysuit with opaque flames licking up the sides and a longline bra with intricate lace that reminds me of raven’s wings. I like them all, but I don’t completely feel like myself until I pair the black satin skirt with the longline bra and an extra piece that Maz procures with a sly grin.

“Have you ever tried one of these?” 

She holds out a black corset.

I balk a little. Corsets remind me of oppressed prairie girls or tacky dive bar patrons.

“I think you’ll be surprised,” she says, reading my hesitation. “This is an underbust corset. It will do nice things for that bra.”

With a shrug, I accept and fit it around my waist. Maz helps me adjust the tightness in the back. 

Damn if she wasn’t right.

The corset sits under my breasts, lifting them like an underwire, which compliments the delicate bra and offers an intriguing combination of soft and strong, ephemeral and tangible. The woman looking back at me is alluring, a delicious treasure who is capable of so much. Someone to be savored. 

I feel so lucky to be her.

“You found it, haven’t you!” Maz beams. With the black satin skirt on top, the ensemble daylights as a very sexy little black dress. If I have reason to take off the skirt, well. Then I suppose the lucky person will get to see the saucey extras Maz helped me pick out. Not like I’m expecting anything to happen.

I meet Rey and Kaydel at the front counter.

“Rose,” Rey exclaims. “You are positively glowing!”

“I can’t wait to see what _you_ got, you little minx!” Kaydel winks.

“Show me what you’re getting first!” I squeal greedily.

Rey holds up a breathtaking superhero queen outfit in structured silver paired with a detailed leather body harness. Kaydel has something that looks like a spiderweb and a deflated black balloon, but knowing her, it’s probably killer.

When I show off my prizes, Rey and Kaydel gush.

“So original!”

“I can’t wait to see it on you!”

Though we protest, Kaydel pays for all of it. “No sense in being an app developer if I can’t waste my salary on my friends,” she says cheerfully.

We float out of _La Belle et La Bȇte_ with our fancy shopping bags and find the nearest patisserie, joking and chatting with the carefree lightness of our college days.

“What will the boys wear?” I ask through a pumpkin scone.

“I sent them somewhere else,” Kaydel says through a smirk.

“Crumbs, do we even want to know?” Rey asks.

Kaydel snickers, the foam of her eggnog latte coats her upper lip.

“It’s a sex shop but it has a large men’s section. It’s called…” She chokes on laughter. “ _Banana._ ”

“Oh god.” I roll my eyes.

With our anticipation for the evening bubbling out of control, we pile back into the car, and brace ourselves for a day of cookie baking and Christmas movies with Kaydel’s mother.

“And do _not_ , I repeat, _do not_ tell her what we got today.”

“I think your mother knows your cousin isn’t throwing a white elephant party, Kaydel,” Rey says.

“Yeah, well we don’t need to point her in the right direction either. My aunt Leia would have a cow if she knew what her son was getting half the town into.”

“And the right direction is…?” I trail off, hoping Kaydel will finally illuminate us.

“You’ll see.” She checks her watch. “Eight more hours and you’ll be looking at it.”

“Christ, you’re really dragging this out,” Rey huffs.

I laugh, freer than I have in months.. Maybe it’s the twinkling Christmas lights, the ghostly tufts of Spanish moss, or the weathered angel sculpture in front of a pink mansion, but I feel Paige.

“No one is ever really gone.” The wisdom of the Boat People floods my mind again.

If Paige was actually close by, I think she would be smiling at me

_Go get ‘em champ,_ I think of Paige’s voice eight hours later, standing before the mirror in Kaydel’s house. Makeup clutters the marble countertops of the bathroom and I’m nearly choking with the smell of hair product. 

My long, shining hair falls in tousled waves down my bare shoulders. Lips: rouged a vivid orange-red, eyeliner: drawn in fierce wings, brows: perfectly angled (thanks to Kaydel). Around my neck, the little silver pendant sits on my collarbone: its twin is buried with my sister. My fingers trace the cold metal on my thrumming skin.

“Rose?” Rey calls from the hallway. “Everyone’s ready to go!”

I suck in a deep breath.

“Okay, Paige,” I whisper.

Here goes nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

Savannah’s Christmas light game is insane.

The same darling gingerbread houses of Abercorn Street roll by the car window, only now in the dark, each quant dormer and eave blinks with sparkling lights. Yards blare in the inky night with glimmering reindeer and blow-up snowmen. I can’t even believe the number of people who go to the trouble of strapping a blinking Santa Claus onto their roof. That’s dedication.

“I shouldn’t have eaten so much cookie dough,” Poe moans.

“I told you to lay off, you’re gonna wanna keep things tight!” Kaydel reaches out across the console between them and slaps his thigh. The smack sounds so fleshy, even from my seat in the back of Kaydel’s mom’s Lexus. That’s because Poe is wearing orange latex pants. 

When I’d first seen his ensemble back at the house, I burst out laughing.

“You look like some kind of prison pilot stripper, Poe!” 

The orange pants were matched with a white leather buckled vest that looked like flight gear. 80’s Air Jordans completed the look.

“What!” He drew out the vowel in protest. “I like it!”

“Just be glad I didn’t let him buy the white fedora,” Finn cracked a grin.

“Ewww,” Rey, Kaydel and I chorused.

Finn had gone for a more traditional take on male lingerie. He chose a sharp, Italian wool suit in jet black with a navy silk tie and matching cuff links. Leather wasn’t his thing, he’d told Kaydel, but she didn’t seem disappointed. She eyed him all the way to the car, stopping to watch him bend over as he climbed into the rear seat.

“I feel so sneaky in this trench coat!” Rey says, bordering on giddiness.

“You look nice.” Finn gives her a longing look and I feel extremely awkward squeezed in between them.

Rey does look incredible. Her auburn hair falls in voluminous spirals down her back and shoulders. Glittering silver eyeshadow matches her Wonder-Woman bodysuit, and with that racy harness on top she’s like the star of an action movie. I imagine the whole party will be in love with her by the end of the night.

I’ve decided not to be pissy about Rey. I love her. Anyway, she can’t help but be a sparkly, glistening goddess any more than I can’t help but be a weepy baby Grinch who misses her sister. At least right now I’m a smokin’ hot Grinch. Ha.

“Mkay.” Kaydel gives us serious eyes through the rearview mirror. “I’ve kept you all in suspense because I didn’t think you’d get in the car with me if you knew what kind of party this was.”

For a beat, we’re all dead silent.

“So… my cousin has been doing this party for the last five years, it’s super exclusive. Ben is hyper particular about who gets in.”

Kaydel shifts nervously in the driver’s seat.

“I… uh… I let Ben and his friend planning the party log into my Instagram account so he could research all of you.”

Rey gasps.

“Kaydel!” Finn reprimands.

It actually doesn’t bother me, I’m sure Kaydel’s weirdo cousin won’t care about my random abstracts and landscape photos. I’m pretty sure the last thing I posted was raindrops on the windowpane of my commuter bus. Then my heart clenches. Some stranger looked at pics of me and Paige.

“It was wrong, I’m sorry!” Kaydel repents. “But it’s a small price to pay for the night of your life!”

There are a few mumbling protests.

“Ok, rules. Rules!” Kaydel collects our attention. She starts talking so fast, I can barely keep up. “Don’t ever interrupt a scene unless you’re specifically invited. Don’t try to pick up somebody wearing a collar. Try not to get drunk, actually maybe lay off the booze entirely. If you decide to do some pick-up play be sure to set hard no’s, soft no’s and what you’re ok with them calling you. Oh, and pick a safeword!”

I shoot Rey a bewildered glance.

“Kaydel.” I lean forward in my seat. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Listen guys, this will be the most gorgeous, insane party you’ve ever been to, and you don’t even have to play, you can just watch and have a good time!

“Define ‘play,’ Kaydel,” Finn says warily.

Poe snorts, “Buncha vanillas.”

“Oh my god, are you in the scene?” Kaydel chirps with delight. “How did I not know this, Poe?”

“Meh, I’m here and there!”

“You dirty scoundrel!”

“Yo!” I interrupt. “A little more information, please?”

Kaydel huffs like I haven’t been paying attention.

“It’s a BDSM party.”

Everyone talks at once.

The temperature inside the Lexus has definitely gone up since her announcement, but none of us are really mad.

Honestly, if she’d soft-pitched me the idea of a spanking party, I would have been like “mmm I’ll stay in my jammies and watch Rudolph with those chocolate stars from Trader Joe’s, thanks.” 

Finn has a hundred and one questions for Kaydel while Rey keeps teasing Poe about hiding his proclivities. I am heating up like a little teapot, though not in a bad way. Earlier, the image of my sexy self in the mirror awakened that faint buzz between my legs, and like a dust-cluttered motor, I’m slowly cranking up power. The idea of watching people…  _ playing _ is kinda interesting.

We get off the freeway and drive through a stately, high-end neighborhood. The houses grow increasingly further apart and the fences higher, until finally we reach an enormous, palatial gate of wrought iron like Roman spears. Kaydel punches in a code and the gate swings open beatifically. 

Ancient live oaks shelter the driveway. Every odd tree glimmers with white lights, giving the forest an ethereal glow. Kaydel keeps to a slow crawl. Rounding a corner, the sight before us makes our stomachs drop.

“Holy shit.”

“ _ That’s _ your cousin’s house?”

“Marvelous!”

It’s a glimpse of the past: an enormous white antebellum plantation house with Greek columns lining the front entrance like a governor’s mansion. Life beams, warm and yellow, through huge picture windows, and yet something about the moonlight on the house’s pale surface makes the hair on my arms stand up. The mansion glows like a rich pearl among vacant cotton fields: an old guardian of evil days. Willow trees huddle in small clumps about the wide green yard; they watch the house and sway mournfully in the winter breeze.

This is the first time my guilt really takes shape. A boney claw of doubt materializes around my heart, squeezing accusingly. 

Won’t it be wrong for me to indulge? 

My skin tingles with foreboding. Surely the shadow of death around me would look ill upon any fun or joy I could have. 

Rey grabs my arm.

“Are you alright?” she whispers. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“I’m fine.”

I shake off the feeling.

A valet (a fucking valet!!) takes the Lexus and we follow a brick path up to twelve dignified steps. 

“Wow, security is tight,” Finn remarks to me as we hand over our driver’s licenses to a large bald man in a strict, pressed uniform.

“Makes me feel better, actually,” I whisper back. 

“Are you nervous, Rose?”

“No,” I lie.

“I am.” Finn’s features twist. “I’m down for whatever, but this place gives me the creeps.”

I’m comforted that I’m not alone in my feelings, but the back of my neck prickles with a new level of alertness. When we step inside the vast entryway, I half expect to face the tattered, creaking inside of a haunted house. 

But it’s nothing like that.

The first thing that hits me is the smell of peach bourbon. It’s dulcet and lulling, drawing me into a trance as we file onto the black quartz tile just inside the grand entryway. An enormous crystal chandelier suspends from the vaulted ceiling and casts a dim, jeweled light across the expansive space. In three directions, tall archways of iridescent marble have been curtained off with red velvet. Music vaguely thumps in the near distance.

“Look at those.” Rey points to a round mahogany table in the center of the entryway. In the middle, a tasteful arrangement of evil-looking black poinsettias perch like a sweet warning. Three flat disks sit at the front of the table like they’re waiting for us.

“Welcome, you’re the Connix party?” A pale woman with dark, cropped hair and a fitted black dress approaches us with a silver tray of mint juleps.

So much for not drinking.

“Please take a moment to fill out these cards,” she says over her shoulder. “Keep them with you.”

The woman passes out thick papers bordered with fancy Victorian scrollwork. It’s a list of sex acts, and beside each item is three boxes: yes, maybe, or no. I sink onto one of the benches lining the wall and inspect my card. Rey sits down beside me.

“I don’t know what half of these things are!” she whispers.

“I’m googling what ‘breath play’ is,” Finn mumbles.

The farther down the list I get, the quicker my heart races in my chest. I’ve never seen such a naughty assortment; every filthy idea makes my stomach bubble with curiosity. I check yes next to biting, no for needle play, and maybe for flogging. More than anything, I’m just intensely turned on by the idea of  _ seeing _ some of this crazy stuff.

As we’re filling out our cards, the woman hunches quietly beside each of us and returns with ribbons. I see her tie three white ribbons on Poe’s wrist. Kaydel gets a black ribbon. When the hostess comes back with a black ribbon for Finn, I can finally hear the question as she asks Rey.

“Would you like to be dominant or submissive tonight?”

Rey’s lips part with surprise.

“What does each entail?” she replies.

“For the first half of the party, the submissives will have three ribbons with their name written on the end. Anyone playing as a dominant will have a black ribbon. Dominants can request one of a submissives’ ribbons and they can either give them one or decline, but submissives can’t play until all of their ribbons are gone, and then only with someone who has their ribbon.”

“What about the second half of the party?” I interject, even though it isn’t my turn.

A sly smile curls on the woman’s purple-stained lips.

“Anything goes.”

“Can I think about it for a moment?” Rey asks. 

“Absolutely.” The hostess turns the question to me, “Do you know which color you’d like?”

Dominant/submissive stuff isn’t my normal dynamic, but I do really like it when my partner takes control. 

“White, please.”

“Very good, be sure to write your BDSM alias onto your ribbons and your card.”

“Ooo an alias?” Rey perks.

Eventually Rey chooses white ribbons too.

“My alias will be ‘Scavenger,’” she says as she writes on the end of her ribbons.

Finn picks ‘Storm’, Poe goes with 'Flyboy’, and Kaydel chooses ‘Dutchess Andromeda du Morte III,’ but the hostess explains that probably ‘Dutchess’ is good enough.

“I guess I’ll pick ‘Flower.” I shrug lamely.

Kaydel snorts.

“You’re the worst at nicknames, Rose!”

“Shut up, Kay!” I throw my pen at her.

“Now, you’ll need to choose your fate.” The hostess points to the three flat disks on the table. “One at a time, select the symbol that speaks to you.”

Everyone watches breathlessly as Poe steps forward and without hesitation, points to a circular shape like a half-moon on its side with a fleur-de-lys rising up from the middle.

“This way, please.” The hostess points to the curtained exit on the far side of the entrance hall.

“Wish me luck!” Poe confidently strides across the room and disappears with the flash of a toothy smile.

Whether on purpose or by instinct, Finn chooses the same and follows Poe’s fate.

Kaydel selects a symbol I can’t see, but she leaves through the middle curtain.

“Our turn, I guess…” I say, clinging to the assumption that Rey will stick with me.

We step up to the table. Besides the symbol Finn and Poe chose, there’s one with a pair of wings on either side of a triumphant, rising blade, flashing with a star, and an octagon with a circle of thin daggers pointing inside its angry orifice.

“Did you see which one Kaydel picked?” I whisper. “We should probably go with her, since she’s done this before!”

Rey shakes her head, no.

I’ll have to deduce it then. If it's between the goody-goody wings and the nasty teeth circle, it’s not hard to guess which one Dutchess Andromeda du Morte III would have picked.

I point to the mean-looking one and am rewarded with the middle path. Rey follows close behind.

With the curtain swallowing me into darkness, I almost trip when I’m met with a set of stairs spiralling up toward a faint red light. Rey bumps into me and we let loose unhinged giggles and follow the staircase upward. A periwigged, stern duke or earl glowers down at us from an oil portrait lining the curved wall. 

The top of the landing is a large parlor with gigantic bay windows on one side and a balcony overlooking the lower floor on the other. The sitting room’s furniture has been pushed to the walls and a uniformed man mixes drinks behind a darkwood bar. Red light pours over everything, bathing the spectacle unfolding before us with vivid intensity. 

Deafening EDM music pulses with the rhythm of bodies in various states of undress. I’ve never seen so much flesh outside of a locker room: it’s titties, asses and banana hammocks as far as the eye can see. My cheeks sting with heat.

People sway, laugh, dance, chat or gather around several ‘scenes’ stationed in different parts of the room. A nude woman with blue hair clings to a balance beam as a guy, fully decked out in leather, lashes her arms and legs together with thick rope. Onlookers sip their cocktails. 

On the far side of the room, two men fawn over a queenly, buxom woman enthroned in a leather club chair. One guy has his face buried in her pussy while the other kisses her, wet and open-mouthed, between her bored sips of whiskey. Her false lashes bat with haughty indifference, but when my gaze accidentally locks with hers from across the parlor, my snatch grips with astonishment.

I turn to Rey.

“Hmm so this is a lot,” I say.

My heart thuds against my ribcage in surprise.

A handsome, dark skinned young man wearing gladiator leathers has Rey caught in his charms. She stands in warm proximity to him, smiling and chatting flirtatiously. By the angle of her face, it’s clear she is simply drooling over his oiled washboard abs. In seconds, he has one of her ribbons.

“I’ll see you later,” he says with a wink and fades into the crowd.

“That was fast,” I try not to sound jealous.

Rey smiles, looking flushed —which is a feat in red lighting.

“I forgot my mint julep, can we get something to drink?” she says loudly over the music. 

When we’ve gotten her a Firefly lemonade, we skirt shyly outward toward the balcony, scanning the tangle of utter hedonism.

“I don’t see Kaydel anywhere!” I yell.

Rey’s face goes slack with shock.

“In there!” 

She points towards one of the suites lining the parlor, its door propped open.

Inside the room, there’s a short, muscular man with a beard on all fours atop a frilly bed. The man trembles as Kaydel circles him like a shark; she’s slow and calculating. She deftly flips a small paddle in her hand with a smirking nonchalance that’s clearly for the benefit of the spectators. Primarily because the man is blindfolded.

“Oh my god…” Rey gasps.

He quivers as Kaydel gets closer. Her red lips curve with malicious delight.

_ SMACK! _

It's difficult to see the man’s reaction but the way he leans into her and yelps makes me think he’s pretty into it. Kaydel backs off again, rebuilding the suspense with feints and misses that draft air against his quaking skin. My arms turn to gooseflesh just watching her tease him.

An onlooker steps into my line of vision, blocking my view of Kaydel and her delighted victim. I occupy myself, instead, with looking over the railing of the balcony at another portion of the party. 

Downstairs, an enormous dance floor glows with dramatic blue lighting. The pit seethes with bodies. On the fringe of the dancers are several circles of spectators flocked around two or more people doing a scene. Poe surfaces among the flailing of limbs, and after a few minutes, I find Finn. He’s standing stock still on the edge of a group, his drink frozen in his hand, his shocked gaze fixed on two women getting tied up together.

“Enjoying the party?”

A bassy voice reverberates behind me, its deep-pitch vibrates inside my stomach.

I swerve around to find a huge man towering over Rey. 

The man is a head taller than the others and brutally stacked; he’s wearing an astronomically expensive suit, but his hair falls uncouth around the severe angle of his jaw. His nose is hooked; lips slant barbarically, but I admit there’s a sexy undercurrent to him that explains Rey’s deer-in-the-headlights expression.

“You’re my cousin’s friend,” the man says.

Rey is still speechless.

“Kaydel?” His brows lift.

“Oh yes,” Rey sputters. “I’m Kaydel’s friend. Kaydel is my friend.”

“You probably know my name,” he says slowly. “But tonight I’m Kylo Ren.”

“Hello, Kylo… I’m Scavenger.” Rey clutches at my arm as if involving me will disperse the intense energy this man has trained on her. “This is my friend, Rose —I mean Flower! She’s with Kaydel too.”

When he turns to me, I immediately understand the disquieting force of his gaze. 

“Uh...hi,” I say lamely, blinking innocently up at him.

“This is a really lovely house,” Rey chirps, recovering her wits.

“Thank you,” Kylo purrs.

“How old is it?” 

“This house was built in 1811 by the Amidala family.”

“Do you ever find that old mansions like this are haunted?” I blurt.

The gravity around us tilts as Kylo inspects me.

“It’s most definitely haunted,” he states.

Rey and I laugh nervously.

“How do you know?” She flashes him a kitten smile.

His smolder darkens, the stoop of his enormous shoulders shifts like he carries a secret.

“Shoes,” he says.

“Pardon?”

“I hear the sound of old, classic-style shoes clicking down the hallways at night. When I check, there’s nothing there.”

“You’re fucking with us,” Rey smirks.

Kylo puts his hand on the bannister and leans toward her, the stillness of his face heightening the sheer menace of his form over her.

“Do I look like somebody who would mislead you?”

“Well…I don’t suppose...ah...” Rey shrugs lamely. Her eyes widen with fear. 

Oh wait.

No, that’s arousal. Rey is totally into this guy.

I hold my breath as he reaches down, painfully slow. He unties the last white ribbon on her wrist. (When did she lose the second?) Air whistles from Rey’s teeth as his grasp grazes the soft skin of her wrist. 

“Oh look at that,” he croons. “Your last ribbon. Gone.”

Her face tips up at his, her eyes brimming with awe. Kylo catches her chin and she melts into him, mewing softly.

“Have you ever seen a Saint Andrew’s cross?” he asks.

Without a word, Rey hands him her embossed card.

And then they’re gone.

I’m alone.

The noise of the room crowds around me.

Without Rey, I feel exposed. The sounds of smacking and moaning blur with the music and that hot, peach-bourbon smell presses a little too close. 

I spot a staircase leading upward and I chase it, ascending out of the red haze and into a bright, moonlit hallway. It’s clearer up here, cooler too. I didn’t notice I had been sweating until now. 

At the top of the stairs by the window, there’s a couple draped over each other in a wingback chair, so I keep moving. I follow a long Turkish carpet down the hallway until I reach an open door. Hoping it's a bathroom, I wander in, only to find a large study. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases cover the walls, each shelf bursts with thick, vintage volumes. 

I intake a sharp breath, inhaling the warm sepia, creased-paper smell of old books. My spine tingles with wonder as I float across the study. Tracing the thick, worn spines, I stop and pull out a familiar title bound in mauve leather:  _ Jane Eyre. _

A thump startles me and I drop the book with a squeak.

I look up.

There, woven with silver moonlight, stands a man, leaning against a bookcase. 

Electric red hair, lightly tousled, falls half-loose with wicked chicness. He’s in slacks and a crisp, half-unbuttoned dress shirt from 1910. An unbound bowtie hangs from poised, self-assured shoulders. His skin is so fair, I’d swear it was made of milk glass.

I can’t shake his eyes. No human has eyes so piercingly green.

That’s when I know.

I’ve found the ghost.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, @no_big_deal, things are about to get spicier!! Are you ready for this? I hope you are delighted because YOU are such a delightful human and a thoughtful, engaging member of the Gingerrose community! I hope your Christmas weekend is relaxing and fun.

“Don’t let me interrupt your perusing,” the ghost says. “But be sure to put everything back. Mr. Solo doesn’t run a lending library.”

My limbs freeze like one of those dumb girls in a horror movie. I expected a ghost haunting a Savannah mansion to have a Southern accent, but this vaguely snide British one is equally unearthly.

When I don’t respond, he straightens and walks closer. He’s a motion study of graceful potency; his shoulders move with his powerful stride, his tense, green stare never strays from me.

_ Click, click, click. _

His vintage patent leather shoes tap eerily on the polished floor.

Every fiber of my body winds tighter. One pluck and I might snap. 

My pulse races, pounding in my neck as he comes to a stop in front of me. Up close, the angles of his face are decisive; his lips curve sensuously, ever on the cusp of a wry smirk. Elegant power hums from every inch of his limber structure.

“That’s a first edition, you know,” he says.

“Huh?”

“Jane Eyre.”

He nods toward the book I’ve dropped. Wiry brows, spun like fine copper, lift expectantly.

“Well go on then, don’t leave it tits up.” 

“Oh,” I gasp. “Sorry!” 

I bend over and pick up the book, keeping the sexy wraith in the corner of my eye.

When I stand, I find his gaze lingering on my wrist.

“I guessed you would choose white,” he remarks, noting the ribbons with a tight nod.

“Why… would you do that?” I ask thinly, my heart skittering with alarm.

“Just a suspicion.” 

I swallow, my throat hollow.

“How do you know me?”

The ghost scoffs.

“I make it my business to know everyone who comes into this house.”

I nod solemnly. Makes sense.

“What do you think of it so far?” 

“The house?” I bleat.

“The party.”

“Oh…” I figure it’s a bad idea to lie to a spirit in a haunted mansion. “The whole thing is very exciting, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m a bit overwhelmed, to be honest.”

“You’re new to the scene,” he states with an ease that makes me feel less embarrassed by my ignorance. “I was curious to see how you might react.”

“You were…?” My heart punches in my chest. I try not to visibly balk at the idea that he has been haunting me, specifically. However, the image of a Victorian ghost lurking around a BDSM party seems particularly on-brand for this place.

“I got the impression that this year has been unkind to you,” he says, casting a steady gaze over my unraveling form.

I’m nearly shaking.

“Yeah.”

“And yet, here you are.” 

He floats closer. I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to.

Air won’t come quick enough from my tightening lungs. I don’t know whether to feel intensely creeped out or relieved that someone finally  _ sees _ me.

“I’ve never done this before, I have no idea how to be a… um…” I point to the white ribbons.

“Submissive.”

“Yeah.”

He studies me.

“May I see your card?”

I blush and reach into the pocket of my skirt, unfolding the heavy cardstock. When I hand it to him, his attention flickers back and forth between the list and me, as if my face alone will give him more information about what I’ve written on my sex menu.

“Perhaps I could show you the ropes, in a somewhat literal sense.” He smirks at his own joke.

My stomach leaps. It was never my intention to  _ play _ with a stranger, much less a terrifying, possibly-dead figure like him.

However, the way he’s undressing me with those green eyes sends jolts of desire straight to my clit. Half of me also suspects this is a weird fever dream from which I’ll awaken at any moment. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

“Okay,” I agree.

He folds up my card and tucks it in the pocket of his slacks.

“Do you understand the basics of a Dom/sub dynamic…” He stops. “What is your name for the evening?” His lips are just on the edge of a smug little smile.

“Oh, uh… Flower...” I shrug. “I get the sense that the Dom is in charge, and the sub obeys for the Dom’s enjoyment?”

“Wrong.”

He fades backward and picks up something off of a heavy antique roll top desk.

It’s a riding crop.

“Sit over there.” He flicks the leather tip toward a velvet club chair covered in Chesterfield-style buttons. 

I keep my gaze fixed on him as I cross the room and sink with a squeak into the plush chair. He puts both hands behind his back, hiding the crop, and paces toward me.

“Taking whatever I want from you, whenever I want, with no consideration for your feelings is not the behavior of a good Dom.” He pauses, letting me see the disdain curling on his lips. “I would call that being a miserable tosser, or as you Americans say,  _ a dick. _ ”

He regards me with a blaze of fierceness; terror darts through my veins and collides together at the apex between my legs. A trickle of moisture dribbles onto my panties.

“I want you to never go near a person who does not first prioritize your desires and needs before all, do you understand?” he snarls.

Delicious shock blooms in my body.

“Yes,” I whimper.

He notches the crop under my chin.

“You may answer ‘yes, sir,’ or ‘yes, General,’ if you prefer.”

“Yes, General.”

“Domination is, first and foremost, duty,” the General lectures. “A Dominant accepts the total responsibility to provide a psychological framework in which their submissive feels safe, known, and desired. Close your eyes, Flower.”

I let my eyelids fall lightly and I reflexively take a deep breath.

He continues, “If authority and strength are the structure of the framework I provide for you, then trust is the floor. Your satisfaction depends on our communication. You’ll inform me if you like something, if you want me to slow down, or stop completely.”

“Yes, sir.”

It almost startles me when the leather tip of the crop presses gently against my shoulder. He sweeps it down the curve of my arm all the way to my fingertips, and then slowly traces the other side in an identical fashion.

“Is that acceptable?” the General asks.

“Yes,” I reply.

The crop follows my shoulder again, but instead of crossing my collar bone, the leather tip slides down my decolletage, almost to my breasts. He pauses right at the center of my sternum, and pulls back, hovering.

I hold my breath, alert and keyed-in to his every movement.

A slight tickle hovers on the strap of my raven-wing bra. The crop grazes the eyelash lace around the curve of my breast, about a centimeter from actually touching me.

“And this?” the General asks pensively, waiting.

“Yes,” I answer with a heavy exhale.

The crop finds the surface of my breast that peeps out of the bra’s cups. It slides up and over its full swell. The leather tip slips inside the bra and creeps inward until I feel it bump my nipple with a slight pinch. It’s not a bad sensation, but I want to see what happens if I tell him to back off.

“Not now,” I say.

“Understood.” 

Retracting slightly, the crop follows the inside of my bra strap with tantalizing slowness. When the leather tab reaches my collar bone, I hear him twist his wrist and he nudges the strap off my shoulder. I breathe out long and thin like an unwinding string.

“These are our exercises, Flower,” he says, his voice as smooth as satin. “The more you trust me, the better it will feel for you when I ask you to do something more, and when I give you pleasure.”

I surrender to a shudder at his use of this word. My skin is alive, burning to be touched again.

“Stand up for me,” he orders.

I slide off the velvet chair. (Has velvet always felt this silky against my thighs?) I still can’t see, but I feel the crop tapping the ribbon bow holding my wrap skirt closed.

“It looks as though this comes off. Yes or no?”

I consider for a moment before I answer.

“Yes.”

With a tug, the bow comes undone and the black silk skirt falls free from my hips with a soft thump on the ground.

The General makes a low sound, something between a hum and a growl. I know he’s looking at the sheer thigh-highs strapped to a lacy garter belt Maz picked out to go with my set. The crop teases the lacey edge of the stockings, flirting with the bit of extra thickness of my thigh that pools around the elastic.

My stomach simmers with arousal. My eyes open just a peep.

His features are stony with predatory lust, but when I look more carefully, I understand he’s pouring upon me his most intense devotion. It’s absolutely panty-wetting.

A quick glance, and he’s caught me peeking; the sweet brutality in his glittering green eyes drops my stomach into my knees. He reproves me with the curve of an eyebrow.

“Naughty girl.”

With a quick snap, he swats me on the thigh and I yelp.

“Eyes closed, Flower.”

“Yes, sir!” I squeak.

“Do you feel that?” he demands. “Is there satisfaction for you in knowing there will be consistency without fail? Tell me, Flower.”

“Yes, definitely!” 

My eyes are watering a little bit, and not because of the crop —that barely stings.

It’s because he’s right. 

Life has been so inconsistent for me lately: so devastatingly unpredictable and at the same time predictably devastating. He’s giving me solid, dependable boundaries, even for something as insignificant as closing my eyes and touching me with a crop. It’s not just random rules, it’s a key to feel more powerful and more in control.

He hasn’t even touched me and already I’m soaring. Dampness seeps through the gusset of my cheeky lace thong: thick as glacé.

The crop returns, inching up my leg toward the elastic fringe of my panties. He’s teasing me, pushing me,  _ torturing me _ with his grazes and near misses, all drawing closer to the heat between my legs. My heartbeat reverberates in my sensitive folds, pounding harder as he gets closer. I nearly moan out loud when the crop paints the damp inside of my thigh. 

The General stops and pulls away.

“Just a moment.” His voice changes. “You may open your eyes.”

When I look up, his face glows with the blue screen of an iPhone. He frowns.

“Forgive me, I’m needed elsewhere,” he says.

Disappointment crashes into my body.

“Hey, why do you get to keep your phone?” I pout. “The lady in the entryway took mine.”

He swipes his phone with a click. With that same arched eyebrow, he gives me an admonishing look.

“I get to keep my phone because I’m running this party,” he says, soft-scolding.

My lips part with surprise. Well, that explains how he knew who I was and what a terrible year I’ve had. (Damn Kaydel’s Instagram.)

What’s more shocking is his tenderness as he picks up my rumpled skirt. He wraps me in black satin like a child out of the bath.

It’s the first time he’s touched me.

Heat floods my hips and lower belly. His fingertips graze my pantyline just where his crop had. 

With a tug on the neat bow, he pats my ass.

“Well done, little Flower.” 

His business-like expression confuses me. Then I remember this whole setting is casual, there’s nothing special about what he just did to me. He’s just a really good Dom. Extremely good, if my thrumming pussy has anything to say about it.

That wasn’t enough for me, not even close. In fact, we hadn’t even started.

The General glances at his phone again while buttoning his shirt with one hand. I decide to be brave.

“I want to do that again,” I begin awkwardly, “When you finish what you’re doing… or sometime later…”

Quick as a flash, he grabs my wrist. His face changes like a flipped switch. 

Those dominating, green eyes lock with mine as he lifts my arm, slow and unhurried. He tilts my hand over as if it’s his plaything and removes one of my ribbons. 

I can’t breathe.

He shoots me a selfish smirk that wrings my cunt like a wet towel.

Then he unlaces another ribbon.

I intake a sharp breath. Can he do that?

He steals the third one too.

When our eyes meet again, I’m certain he’s going to fuck me where I stand. Right now.

“I’m not finished with you, my petal,” he basses, leaning closer so his breath brushes my cheek. He’s still gripping my wrist. “I’ll be back to claim use of these.” He pockets the ribbons.

I think I’m going to pass out.

And then he pulls away, leaving me a throbbing, pulsing puddle of arousal. 

With a purposeful gait, he strides out of the study, opening his phone again without a glance backward. 

I slump back into the velvet chair, panting.

One thing’s for sure, this would be a lot less complicated were he simply a ghost.


	5. Chapter 5

I wander like a lost soul down to the red-lit floor. 

I don’t have to search long before I bump into Kaydel emerging from… whatever she was doing in that room with the man and the ping pong paddle.

“Rose!” She dashes up to me and grasps my hand. “There you are. I couldn’t find anybody for the longest time!”

Her face glistens with sweat and elation. I’m not convinced for a second that she missed us, but I get it. It’s a grace I’m happy to extend since my veins still thrum hot from my own arousing vignette.

“Looks like you’ve been busy!” I gesture discreetly at a shadow lurking behind Kaydel.

Her eyes widen with exasperation. She sneaks a glance at the man; he’s the same one she was paddling earlier. 

He has tousled, sandy hair and a ruddy, good-natured face like he’s been out gardening or doing other wholesome things. He’s the shorter side, but muscular, kind of like a sexy hobbit. 

He hangs politely back with a puppy-dog expression that tells me Kaydel has definitely caught a stray.

“I can’t lose him!” she says between unmoving lips. Her face is so comically desperate, I want to crow with laughter.

“Aw, he looks nice though!” I strain to keep the corners of my mouth from splitting into a grin.

“He called me  _ mommy _ !” Kaydel hisses.

“Ooo…” 

Now I’m biting my lip. I’ll draw blood before I laugh in Kaydel’s face but she’s sure making it difficult. 

“And that’s a yay or nay?”

She leans closer to me.

“...I  _ liked it! _ What the fuck does that mean?”

I finally let out a muffled snort.

“Maybe he’s like one of those baby birds that imprints onto another species!” I tease.

“Stop it!” Kaydel slaps my shoulder with one of her loose gloves. “I’m serious, how do I ditch him?” she whines.

The humor that was just fizzing in my stomach dies out.

What if the General wanted to ditch me too? Was I being too clingy?

“I think we should invite him to go downstairs with us and dance,” I say, feeling a sudden protectiveness for both Hobbit Dude and myself.

Kaydel rolls her eyes.

“Come on,” I urge her. “You had a good time, he seems sweet and you told me last week that you wanted to work on letting people in!”

She huffs but she knows I’m right. 

Kaydel swerves around on the sharp toes of her stilettos. The wet-look, latex bodycon dress and strappy leather shoulder harness amplify her regal haughtiness. I understand why the guy looks a bit intimidated.

“You.” She points to Hobbit Dude with her shiny, gloved hand. “Come downstairs and dance with us.”

His pensive expression melts into an enthusiastic grin.

“Damn, he’s got it bad,” I whisper to Kaydel as he scurries after us.

“Shut it, Tico,” she growls. Changing her voice, she addresses her sycophant, “Professor, this is my friend, Flower.”

“Nice to meet you,” Professor says with a slightly-servile nod.

“Relax,” I whisper, “All of Kay— I mean,  _ Dutchess’ _ friends are afraid of her too!”

“A little fear keeps things interesting,” he replies with a friendly smile. “In this setting, the tension between expectation and fruition is as much a part of the fun as the fruition itself.”

I’m speechless.

“And  _ that _ , my friend, is why he’s called Professor!” Kaydel says dryly.

We follow a long staircase down to the ground floor where the music intensifies all around us, thudding inside our bodies. The room swarms with limbs and heads like Dante’s Inferno —if hell was a gorgeous, glittering dance party with every auspice of an inevitable orgy.

“Do you see Finn and Poe?” Kaydel yells over the music.

I shake my head, no.

Kaydel shrugs and jumps into the dancing throng with Professor close behind.

With a deep inhale, I throw myself after them into the seething mass, threading through the tangled fray of limbs. The speakers blast a slappy, walking bass; I roll my hips with the enticing, uptempo rhythm. Dua Lipa, or maybe that’s Ariana, belts a seductive melody, her sultry overtones echo off the vaulted ceiling.

Forgetting her earlier hesitation, Kaydel throws herself into a flirty mating dance with Professor. They’re not grinding, not even touching actually, but she rocks and sways, each movement a command:  _ come get me.  _ Professor reads Kaydel like a book. When she faces him, he subtly mirrors her motions, and when she turns the other way, he tests her interest by seeing how close he can dance to her. 

Their ritual escalates: as they inch closer to its freaky endgame, I decide to sashay elsewhere. I let the crowd swallow them up and lose myself in my own carefree dancing.

That stuff Professor said about expectation and fruition is happening everywhere I look; push and pull. 

A woman with a bird mask skims the sumptuous curve of her ass against the lap of her eager partner. On the pole, an exotic dancer swirls his hips like a glass of wine. He builds anticipation with speed and then releases with a slow, sensual body roll. 

The music, too, winds up like a spring. The volume crescendos, the drums double time, then quadruple before exploding back into the chorus.  _ Release.  _ The dance floor ignites into a wildfire of frenzied, jumping ecstasy.

Then, it hits me like a bolt of lightning: the guy grinding on Bird Mask Girl is Finn.

“Oh! Hey!” He spots me, practically leaping off Birdy’s ass. “Didn’t see you there!”

I laugh. Funny that he’s still shy around me about… that kind of stuff.

“Are you having a good time?” I yell. “Where’s Poe?”

“Poe’s over there!” Finn points to a pair of orange pants, twerking madly amid a flail of limbs.

“Is Rey here?” he asks.

I flinch. He’s not gonna like the answer.

“Uh… She’s with somebody.”

“Oh.” Finn rubs his forehead.

“Hey, you should have fun.” I tip my head in the direction of Bird Girl. “Tonight is about having a good time.”

He looks surprised.

“You’re not mad…” he stutters, “...that you and, uh, me?”

“No, silly!” I bark at him. For a second, I consider divulging that I’ve got someone else haunting my thoughts, but something makes me want to keep the General a secret. Part of me almost believes it didn’t happen in real life.

“Hey! Guys!” Poe bursts through the crowd. He’s already gathered Kaydel, with Professor in tow. We stop dancing and huddle our heads together like a kickball team.

“I heard about another level to this party!” Poe says, vibrating with excitement.

“Yeah, there’s a bunch more bondage and spanking scenes happening upstairs,” I reply, giving Kaydel an eyebrow waggle.

“Not upstairs,” Poe says. “Downstairs.”

“Oh, the dungeon?” Kaydel scoffs. “Good luck getting in, I’ve never gotten invited down there.”

“It’s invite only?” Finn frowns.

“No!” Poe moans. “Some people I was just dancing with were headed down there, they said some  _ insane _ demonstration is happening right now! Like, some kind of ancient torture-turned-art-form!”

“What kind of art form?” I ask.

“Hmm… I think a rope thing?” Poe shrugs.

“I know who you’re talking about!” Professor interjects. “He’s an incredible artist, years ago he would do the most dramatic presentations at this party, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Please, Kaydel,” Poe begs. “You’ve gotta get us into the dungeon!”

“We can always try,” says Kaydel. “Who knows, my cousin might be down there. Blackmail is evergreen, after all.”

We all head down a hallway to an echoey, marble flight of stairs leading into the bowels of the house.

At the bottom of the stairs is a black curtain guarded by a hulking beefcake with thick eyebrows and a bald head. 

“Names,” the bouncer asks blandly.

When we give them, he tells us we’re not on the ‘Dungeon List,’ whatever the fuck that is.

“Oh, hold up,” he squints at his iPad. “There’s been a change. Her. She’s on the dungeon list.”

The bouncer points to me.

My insides flutter.  _ Me?  _ Did the General do this? Every question that pops into my mind with how or why he would choose me adds another butterfly to my stomach.

“No way!” Poe retorts. “That’s totally not fair!”

Kaydel steps forward. She hems and haws, argues and gesticulates, and even starts listing the Connix/Organa family tree. Still, the bouncer won’t budge. 

I get an idea.

“You know.” I puff myself up as bravely as I can. “I think Kylo Ren will let everyone in.”

“Why is that?” the bouncer deadpans.

“Because our little group brought him his date for tonight.”

The bouncer’s heavy eyebrows stretch up his face. He looks down at his iPad and types quickly, my guess is he’s messaging Kylo. While he’s staring at the screen, I don’t turn around or glance back, but I can feel my friends’ glares of disbelief burning holes in my back. When the bouncer looks up, he gives us a grunt and a nod.

“Go ahead.”

We brush through the curtain. As velvet whisks past my ears, I catch snippets of my friends’ whispers. 

“The fuuuu…” 

“Whaaa?” 

“How did she…”

Instantly, everyone forgets about the  _ how _ and focuses on the  _ what. _

And ‘what’ is a question I have for almost every piece of furniture standing before me. 

We’re standing in a dimly lit, vast expanse that’s probably big enough to make up the whole footprint of the mansion. The space reminds me of a boxing gym, only if the boxers were billionaires. And the boxing was sex.

The floors and walls are a glossy, lacquered concrete: so smooth, they reflect the candelabras set about the room. Yellow recessed lights and tracks of colored spotlights form pools of visibility where people can choose to be seen, if they want to. 

Some of the spotlights fall on devices I can’t begin to understand, like a giant, black padded X on one wall that holds a young man, his arms and legs clamped onto each corner. A square, modern-looking cage of clear plastic lucite hangs from the ceiling; inside, a woman with kitty ears swishes a fluffy tail, doubtlessly an anal toy.

Not far away, a hanging metal grid that reminds me of an overhead kitchen rack detains three topless women by their wrists. Shock squeezes my chest; I try in vain to tear my gaze from their free, bouncing breasts.

“I kind of expected this to look more… Medieval, I guess?” Finn whispers to me.

“It’s like if a Scandanavian design firm did a take on Modern Gothic,” I reply.

“Everything is so sleek and…”

“Minimalist,” I finish his sentence.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “When Kaydel said ‘dungeon’ I thought we were gonna find wooden stocks and a bed of nails.”

He makes a face and I giggle.

We make our way through a lavish seating area made up of silky black leather cubes. Here, the most posh-looking guests lounge like Romans around an actual human table.

This is the most astonishing sight of the evening thus far.

Staring breathlessly, I begin to discern bodies laying across a surface centered in the middle of the seating arrangement. Illuminated by an undulating turquoise light, a group of models rests in a still, living portrait, their limbs extended or curved like dancers. They’re completely naked, male and female, tangled up together to form various surfaces upon which clear trays of hors d'oeuvres elegantly perch.

A man in a suit wanders casually toward the display and selects a bit of sushi with a toothpick off a tray held up by a torso. He holds the appetizer with a cocktail napkin and saunters over to a group watching a flogging. No big deal. 

My stomach jolts with astoundment. I’m feeling a lot of things, but peckish is not one of them.

Still, I can’t take my eyes off the people. Each face that I can pick out wears a different expression. I wonder what it feels like to stay stuck in that position and emotion for so long. Must be painful. 

I guess I understand emotional gridlock, to a certain extent.

“I’m gonna grab something!” Poe starts to lunge toward the human table.

“Hey!” Kaydel hisses, snatching at his arm. “Keep it cool! I don’t want to get kicked out because you stabbed somebody in the eye with a toothpick!”

“Relax!” Poe smirks.

We hold our breaths while he approaches the scene with his typical ironic swagger. 

“Oh my god,” Finn groans, “He’s totally about to blow it.”

“Guess we can say goodbye to the dungeon,” I snort, looking away.

But I don’t get the chance to see if Poe embarrasses us or not. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a flash of red.

Instantly, every fiber of my body is alive. It could only be him. I forget everything else and consider dashing across the dungeon with a giddy shriek. 

Instead, I turn around and realize if I ran across the room right now, he wouldn’t see me.

The far side of the dungeon descends deeper into the ground: a small, yet dramatic amphitheatre. At its base is a stage, and there, at the center of blinding lights and the attention of everyone seated around him, is the General.

Happiness burns in my cheeks. Only when my hand hits the guard rail on the edge of the amphitheatre do I realize I’ve floated across the entire dungeon like a lovestruck idiot.

My eyes feast on him, ravenous. He’s so perfect, with his rumpled shock of red hair and crisp, genteel movements. General is a fitting title for him; his gait is purposeful and severe, his shoulders carry gravitas like those gold epaulets in the paintings of lords from Europe.

Then it hits me like a blow. It’s not just him down there.

He’s standing below a hanging beam, weaving a gorgeous, full-body harness out of intricate knots onto a tall, broad-shouldered woman with cropped blonde hair. Her arms are tied behind her back, a rope pulls her almost off the ground. Feet skimming the floor, her toes grip the stage to keep herself from dangling wildly about. She scrunches her eyes shut with concentration; sweat glistens from her forehead and decolletage.

I grasp the cold guard rail, fighting a hot, nasty bloom of rage. Who is that girl and why is she in his brilliant, elaborate embrace? Why does he move so powerfully around her, so carefully, watching each knot, each tender graze of the rope making her shudder?

My gaze locks back onto the General. How fucking dare he take my ribbons and then leave me to… to...  _ play  _ with _ somebody else!  _ And at the center of the party too! Oh, I’m gonna kill him. I’m going to tear out every last strand of that beautiful red…

The General pivots toward the crowd, speaking in his clear, Queen’s English. His whiskey-smooth voice washes warm and soothing down my spine.

“Semenawa is not simply the fetishization of pain, it is the idea that taking control of suffering can heighten our feelings on multiple planes,” he says. 

He takes out another length of rope, running it through his hands like it’s speaking to him.

“Notice how the model concentrates,” he lectures. “She’s shut out all of you and makes her own journey inward.”

With a gentle, fatherly stroke of long, pale fingers, the General pushes against the woman’s shoulder, swiveling her around so the audience can see him kneel and loop the rope through several hitches at her ankles and thighs. 

I’m holding my breath. Who knows what Semenawa is, but watching him thread and yank and tie, I get the sense he’s solving a complex math equation or finding his way through a maze. He’s a spider, breathing long and slow, tangling the model up in his cruel web. 

I want to be his little fly.

Creeping down a dark set of steps, I push my way through the crowd until I’m planted front-and-center, just below the stage. From here, the sounds and textures of the demonstration are so much more vivid. The ropes creak as the model struggles to stay balanced on her tippy-toes. The General’s slacks hush softly up his calves as he kneels, his knees pop a little. The saccharine smell of hairspray wafts off the model, mingling with her sweat.

When he finishes attaching the rope to the model, he steps back.

“This diamond, or  _ hishi _ , pattern I’ve created around her body is called  _ kikkou shibari _ , or ‘the turtle.” He spins the blonde woman around so fast, her short hair splashes against her forehead. “This harness, along with the  _ shinju _ and  _ tatenawa, _ will not only support the model during suspension, but provide subtle acupressure.”

The General pulls on one of the ropes, hoisting the model off her feet and into a suspended plank. She gasps a little as she sways in the air. Ropes groan like a ship’s rigging. He leans close to her face and speaks softly. My neck pangs and I realize I’m craning, straining to hear his sweet words.

I’m so wrapped up in watching, I don’t even feel mad that he’s speaking so intimately with her. Her plaintive pants and grunting awaken a deep empathy in me; I’m familiar with that painful lurch. And the General, god, he’s breaking my heart with his tenderness. He’s right there with her, a midwife to her inner struggle, guiding her with quiet murmurs and adjustments in the rope’s pressure.

I’m pouring with sweat. The sounds of voices and sporadic flogging still echo around the dungeon behind me, but I can’t hear any of it.

This is almost sexier than actual sex.

“Observe that there is nothing the model can do,” the General says to the audience. “She has surrendered all autonomy to me and the rope. The rope offers her a moment of complete tranquility and distance from the need to control or strive.”

Holy shit, I think this is making sense. I want what she has: that feeling like I can actually trust again without being let down. Like if I fell, somebody would catch me.

As if my thoughts attract the General’s attention, his face turns and we find each other: me veiled in darkness, his green eyes lit up and fierce as twin storms.

He stiffens for just a second and my heart stops dead. Fucking dead.

Then, while I hold my breath, his features tighten. His jaw clenches and his eyes flash with a look I can’t decipher. I’m not sure what he wants, but my drooling pussy seems to know exactly what  _ it _ wants.

The General turns his attention back to the model, letting her hang in the air for a few more moments. Then, he pulls on his end of the rope, shifting her so her body weight presses against the restraints on her arms. She grunts a little. There’s no way she can escape the pressure, I imagine I would feel so helpless if it were me.

The second the thought enters my mind, he glances at me with a dark smolder.  _ You would be so helpless under my control _ , his wry smirk seems to say.

Oh fuck, is this what a heart attack feels like?

He unties the rope holding up the model’s thighs and ankles, lowering her just above the ground, another teasing little lure of false security. This time, the General looks at me with naked lust. 

It’s like he’s eye-fucking me while dominating this woman.

My lungs are frozen, unable to draw breath for fear that the spell will break. My pulse thunders in my ears, louder than the muffled bass from upstairs.

His voice nearly startles the ghost out of me.

“Semenawa is not only about the person experiencing the rope bondage,” he says, directly to me, “It is what happens when their partner takes them to the edge of their limits. It is an exercise of trust.”

The General lowers the model to the ground and unties her slowly. She relaxes, her limbs spent and wobbly like a puddle of gelatin. His gentle touch supports her. Quickly, the knots come loose from her body, though his movements are anything but hurried. Every few minutes, he casts me an unraveling look that pulls me into what he’s doing to her. 

He smirks at me when her wrists come free. He gives me a stern look when he undoes the rope from her crotch. He strokes the circulation back into the model's limbs and stares me down like he’s telling both of us we’re worthy of kind, soft attentions.

I might be losing my mind. This isn’t actually happening, I’m insane, right?

My underbust corset has become too tight for my quick breaths. Heat swamps my skin and pours into the base of my pelvis like lighter fluid, and that tingle between my legs grows into a painful, insistent ache of desperation. I spread my knees to draft some air up into my satin skirt.

The model sits up and the General puts his arm over her shoulder. She blinks like she’s just woken up from a long nap and says something to him that I can’t hear. His reply is clearly a tease, their exchange is so familial. 

Now that she’s alert, their dynamic is obviously not romantic. She carries herself more like his protective older sister, even though a moment ago she was technically the submissive. Fascinating how ‘play’ can be so different from usual personalities.

The General and the model stand and take a quick bow before leaving the stage. The room fills with soft chatter as the spectators turn to the person next to them, waiting for the next act.

My heart starts to tear as he turns to go, like he’s leaving me behind again. But as soon as the model disappears through a door headed off-stage, the General veers off. He trots down the staircase to the side of the stage and threads through the crowd.

I clutch the edge of my seat, not believing my eyes as that flash of red makes its way toward me.

It’s really him. Standing in front of me.

In the darkness of the pit just beneath the stage, his face is shadowed, but the top of his head catches the spotlight’s beam like a burst of molten bronze.

“I hoped you would find your way down here,” he says, his voice gentler than I remembered from earlier. 

Whether it’s the dark, our earlier play, or the intimacy of his pointed glances, we’re standing inches from each other. The hem of my skirt grazes his leg.

“I really liked that.” I swallow, shoving down a burst of shyness. “What did you say it was called?”

“Semenawa. It means, ‘ _ torture rope _ ’ in Japanese.”

My eyes adjust to the off-stage dimness and I find his face, softened with infatuation. His velvet lips part. That shadowed green gaze peers down at me, the heat of it surrounding me like a winter coat.

My blood rushes to my head and my cunt with equal force. Now I understand those fainting bitches in 1950s movies.

“I’m in a bit of a bind,” he says, ignoring my momentary vapors. “The performer scheduled during this time hasn’t showed up.” He pauses, studying me. “Would you care to do a Semenawa demonstration with me?”

Without warning, he slips closer to me. My hip brushes against his leg.

“You think I could do that?” I gulp. 

I wonder if he can feel me trembling.

“I believe you trust me,” he replies. “That is the first and most critical component of rope modeling.”

Tension trickles through me like sand sifting to the other side of a rain stick.

“But more than that.” His voice deepens, resonating in my belly. He reaches, taking a bit of my hair in his fingertips. “I want to give you this.” 

I sway on my feet like a pine in the wind. 

_ Why me?  _ I ask myself. The obvious answer is,  _ why not me? _

“Yeah,” I breathe after a few moments of consideration. “Let’s do it.”

A soft noise reverberates in his chest, barely audible above the sounds filling the amphitheater.

Maybe I felt it, actually. 

He’s all over me now: pushing my hair back from my face, spreading his pale hand fondly across the structured middle of my corset.

“This will have to go, as well as your skirt,” he remarks. “Are you quite comfortable with that?”

My cheeks flood with heat. Normally, being naked on a stage in front of a crowd would be the subject of a bad dream, but now it doesn’t sound so bad. Everywhere he touches me lights a fire in my skin; I’m obsessed, entranced. This guy has definitely bewitched me.

“Yeah, that’s ok.”

“Look at me, Flower,” he commands, his tone calling my senses into sharp attention. “You will need to trust me more than ever before, do you understand?”

I nod, eyes widening.

His head tilts, an eyebrow draws up like he’s going to scold me.

“Yes, sir!” I chirp.

“Good girl.”

Minutes later I’m on the stage wearing nothing but my bra and a thong. The brilliant spotlights blind me, blotting out anyone but the General. He clutches one of my hands, leading me like I’m a child. He motions for me to kneel where he’s pointing. 

My knees find the cool, lacquered surface. He cups my face. I can’t stop staring at the corners of his eyes, the skin around the edges crinkles when he looks at me.

“Are you ready, my girl?” he whispers, so thrilling in his calm way.

I exhale slowly, letting all apprehension leave. When I draw my next breath, I imagine myself taking him in, giving him control.

“Yes, sir.”


	6. Chapter 6

The lights go out. 

There’s only one spotlight pouring a dreamy blue circle onto the center of the stage. From where I’m kneeling, the General is a dark silhouette. I can’t see my friends or any of the faces in the audience, but I know they’re there.

“For this next demonstration, I ask that there be absolutely no sound,” he says with a quiet sternness that makes every person in the room hold their breath. When the place falls deafeningly silent, I realize that all the dungeon furniture must be abandoned right now.

Every eye locks on to me.

The General turns around, his green eyes owning me with a glance, and I know I’m the only person in the room. He kneels, taking my hands in his.

“You’ve done it now, petal,” he whispers, lips slanting. 

Methodically, sensuously, he brings my arms back behind my head one at a time, running strong fingers down my triceps like furrows to stretch out the muscles.

“I trust you,” I reply.

Pressure from his thumbs drives into my shoulders and I try not to moan.

“How difficult it will be for me to resist pushing you to your very edge, Flower,” he says behind me, barely above a whisper.

My pulse skitters like a leaf.

“...Why?”

He stops massaging. He picks up the thick shibari rope and runs the doubled cord through his hands.

“Because I want to see who you are.” The sound of a dark smile colors his voice. “I believe I’m about to.”

My spine electrifies with energy. I’m not even tied up and he’s already provoking me.

“Ready for the rope?” he asks.

“Yes, sir.”

The casual speed of his movements stops so suddenly, somebody gasps from the darkened crowd. Where a moment ago his shoulders were swinging with ease, now he’s tight and deliberate: like a tiger stalking its prey. Tension crackles between us.

With a sultry glance, the General tucks the rope in his mouth and slides behind me like he’s spooning me from a kneeling position. The buttons of his shirt scrape my back, he’s  _ that _ close to me. My skin prickles when his lips brush my ear.

“Relax and let go. You’re mine now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wrapping an arm around my shoulders, he clutches me against him from behind, holding me in his lap. He pushes up off his heels onto his knees, lifting my hips with his like we’re connected. I’m limp in his arms; each of his movements heighten my awareness of his body, and my own.

The rope is in his other hand, its loops splash against my thigh, but I forget about it when his cheek nuzzles up to my neck.

“Lovely,” he whispers, tasting me with a kiss.

I close my eyes. His breath draws quick and hot across my neck, and without trying, I parallel him. Air starts to move faster in and out of me. His soft kisses walk up the side of my face as he bends my head, swan-like to one side. Teeth scrape the corner of my jaw and I let out a breathy sigh.

In smug delight, I cling to the thought that he didn’t do this to the other girl. A burst of possessive hope swells in my chest.

With a snap, he pulls a length of rope across my body from behind. His breaths on my cheek quicken as he draws, with torturous slowness, the taut string up my breasts and shoulders. He flosses the rope along my sensitive neck like a delicious threat. 

Self-restraint emanates from the clench of his stomach against my back and the hiss of air between his teeth. My insides flutter at the thought of his leashed danger. I can’t help but writhe against him as he pulls me deeper into his body with the rope at my throat.

Then he drops one end and catches my chin firmly.

“I mean to possess you, Flower,” he says so only I can hear him. “I want you to give me everything, darling girl.”

My pussy clenches with how badly I want to do that. His hand roams my body, coasting up the satin skin of my belly and lingering with a deliberate clutch of my breast.

“You can have it,” I pant desperately.

This catches the ear of the onlookers; a woman’s voice moans softly.

The General takes my hands and moves them to my sides, wrapping the rope in complex loops and diamond knots around my arms, shoulders and middle. Silence fills the entire basement, except for his gentle breaths and the sound of the long rope spilling in front of me and then behind again. 

With complex knots and angles of rope, he builds a sturdy harness around my upper body. My tightly strapped arms cramp a little, yet I’m totally relaxed. I move about like a doll; he shifts me with steady pressure and soft-handed caresses, tender as if he was making love to me.

Before I know it, I’m falling headfirst toward the ground, but I stop: caught by the rope. I notice then that I didn’t even flinch as I plummeted toward the floor, I probably wouldn’t have even thought of it, had there not been several sharp gasps from the audience.

The rope creaks slightly and with my weight forward and my knees firmly on the ground.

The General’s hand slides across my cheek, he lifts my face upward.

The look on his face is a mixture of awe and lust.

“Perfect girl,” he says like I’ve accomplished something tremendous. My cheeks flood with happy pride.

I’m not sure how this works, but the way he rigged the web around my shoulders presses deep into my sternum and the spots just below my left and right clavicle. 

I grunt a little. 

Pain blooms around those sensitive places, but it’s not like,  _ ouch _ , pain —more like a massage or acupuncture. 

Without breaking eye contact, the General pulls on the rope and I’m lifted with my knees just barely brushing the floor. I feel those pressure points increase in intensity. A jolt shoots through me, white heat webs across my skin. I bite my lip to keep from releasing a cry.

“Let me in, petal.”

The force doesn’t abate, he is relentless: keeping the tension firmly digging into me. It’s not insanely painful, per se; it feels like my body is coming online to 5G: every sensation heightened. I have to exhale slowly and focus. 

“That’s it, breathe,” he whispers. His knuckles graze my cheek, each tiny point of contact igniting my skin like matches. 

All at once, feelings start floating to the surface of me like soda pop bubbles. They’re vague, nameless annoyances and disappointments; I don’t latch on to any of them. I just let each feeling float up and pop on the other side of me. With a heavy exhale, the tingle of endorphins rushes to take their place. 

The General makes a sound like he knows exactly what I’ve done. The tension releases slightly, my knees rest on the floor again and I sink back to sitting on my heels. The pressure points are still there, but now they’re more like a steady plane instead of a sharp spike. My heart hammers in my chest, sweat breaks out all over me, damp and glistening.

“Such a good girl,” he murmurs, anchoring the rope to itself.

The General’s fingers tangle in my hair. He cradles my head and leans me backward like a dip at the end of a tango. I relent to him without question. My legs unfold from underneath me, opening to him like a flower. When I’m seated on my tailbone, he slides a possessive hand under my thigh. 

“How generous you are, Flower,” he says softly, kissing my knee. His devotion stabs me right in the spot where the knot presses against my sternum. It’s absolutely dizzying that he would do this for me. I think I love him.

Only now do I notice that he’s sweating too, he’s rolled his sleeves up and opened his collar where I can see the firm curve of his pects shine. Fuck, I want to lick him.

I can see his work this time, though I’m torn between my curiosity and the pull to close my eyes and retreat into my own intense focus.

He’s so damn precise.

The rope rasps against my bare leg as he loops the double strand, tucking it through and tugging sharply. Long, careful fingers adjust the placement of the coils holding my thigh. He weaves a cuff onto each leg and then flips me over, my stomach presses against the flat, cool surface of the stage.

I gasp when the rope slides up along the soaked gusset of my panties.

”Ah, you like that,” he hums. The rough cord flosses back and forth, teasing my sensitive folds through the lace. He’s shrunk my focus, narrowing me down to this tight space held by rope, his own little world, and now he’s teasing me with it. It’s blindingly erotic.

My bonds cut into my legs a little, my shins start to ache.

I must look pretty intense to everyone in the audience, lying on my stomach, my legs bent back in a graceful curve like a mermaid lounging tail-up on the beach.

When he’s satisfied, he gets up and, with the jerk of a rope, pulleys up my top half up so I’m lifted onto my knees. He grasps a fist full of my hair and swings me around so I’m turned away from the audience.

“Are you ready to fly, my perfect girl?” He gives me a rakish little smile; excitement gleams around the edges of his authoritative demeanor. He pushes my hair back from my face.

His praise makes my heart skip three beats.

“Yes, sir!” I breathe.

With great ceremony, he threads a levering rope into my leg ties and attaches it to the beam. In a few long yanks, I’m suspended in the air about three or four feet off the ground. I dangle like a swinging bird puppet: my tight bonds hold me horizontally in a curved position like I’m trying to touch the back of my head with my toes. 

I sense the General step back from me, his distance like a thread that I can physically feel. 

He’s admiring me.

The room peppers with little sounds of shifting bodies and murmurs, but I quickly shut them out.

My eyes won’t even open, the pressure is so intense. Rope bites into my flesh and blood rushes to my head. I breathe slowly through pursed lips to stay on top of the sensation. In the complete disorganization of my body, there’s a kind of transcendent peace. It’s tempting to let my brain drift in that haze.

“Stay with me,” he says. “Feel it, Flower, don’t wander.”

His words pull me back to the sharp edge of this moment and I find myself standing right on the brink of all my rawness. All my wounds.

A deeper pain lights up in my body, it’s beginning and end I can’t begin to fathom. I want to lurch back, to recoil from this aching, howling deep.

I should have known this would happen.

Of course throwing myself into an emotional practice would bring me here, in front of a stinking vat of all my horrible feelings. And yet, in this twisted shape of surrender, I find the bad vibes steaming off. I’m depressurizing in a steady plume of vivid energy. 

Tears start to drip from my eyes.

He bends over me; the sound of him loosing a third rope slaps lightly on the stage. One end of the rope pulleys through a loop in my leg and then, with both ends in his hands, he kneels down so he is beneath me, his face inches from mine. Every teardrop pouring from my face falls onto his shirt.

“We can stop now,” he whispers. “I think there might be more here for you. However, if we go further, there might not be any going back.”

I blink down at him, fuzzily. 

Blue light draws sharp contrasts on his nose and high cheekbones. He’s stable and sure under me, his eyes fixed with a reverence that assures me I am not  _ too much. _ Full lips twitch like he wants to kiss me.

He’s a stranger.

But I know he won’t let me down. I just know.

“Keep going,” I hiss inelegantly.

I can almost see his pupils expand with elation.

“Brave girl.”

Without wasting time, he gathers up most of my hair and knots it in one end of the rope.

The image of me must be shocking: flying midair, my arms strapped behind me, my legs arched in a back-bend, my head yanked back with a rope pulling my hair. And on the other end of the rope, is my sweet General, slowly increasing the tension.

My head tilts back, pulled toward my leg, pushing my body weight into the acupressure of my harness. It’s like blinding electrocution of pure grief.

I cry out.

That’s when I’m reminded that I have a room full of people watching me.

“No!” Finn‘s voice cracks through the dark.

But that’s the last I hear of him.

“Focus on me, Rose.” I hear the General’s calm words reaching for me. The tension eases slightly so he can find me.

My teeth gnash, I taste blood on my tongue. The pain is so intense, I’m completely outside my body.

I can see her face.

Paige.

And I’m so fucking mad.

How fucking  _ dare _ she leave me. What kind of a sadist would take away my sister? Why doesn’t anyone understand that I’m broken and I won’t ever be the same? 

Will anyone love the new fucked up me?

“Don’t hold it, darling girl,” a voice pierces my thoughts.

What the fuck, Paige!

“Rose.”

I open my eyes again.

It’s him. His clear eyes break the static and I find the pain in my body again. Air saws in and out of me with big, labored breaths, I’m dripping with perspiration and emotion. Titanic feelings shake and buckle against the dam inside with a roar that might consume me.

He knows my name.

“Give it to me, Rose,” he orders. 

_ I can’t _ .

“All of it.”

_ It’s too much. _

“Now, Rose.”

He draws it out of me: knot after knot after knot. 

Waves crash in my ears, a thousand sped-up VCR tapes play on fast-forward images of me and Paige. With a rush, the reservoir of anger, loneliness and despair breaks.

I wail.


	7. Chapter 7

Next thing I know, I’m cut down from the beam and somewhere off stage, melting in his lap.

My head lolls on his shoulder while he tenderly unravels the rope from my thighs. His fingertips smooth the deep pink tire-tracks in my flesh. My blood hums with the sensation of a runner’s high.

“What just happened?” I ask, sounding completely drunk. 

“I don’t know.” His breath tickles my cheek. “But you’re not alone.”

In steady strokes, he works out the tension in my shoulders and arms, melting the stiffness away.

A vulnerability hangover washes over me.

“...Fuck, I just embarrased you.”

He pauses and spreads the warm palm of his hand over my heart.

“Miss Tico, there was not a dry eye in that room.”

I shift so I can see his face.

His eyes are red-rimmed and glassy.

“Darling girl,” he whispers, “You did brilliantly. I cannot believe how much you gave me.”

His words send my heart racing.

“I feel safe with you,” I half-whisper. 

I want to shut my eyes, but I can’t stop staring at the raw emotion written in the crease of his eyebrows, the softness in his gaze, the fond twist of his lips. I accept, with a flutter of wild delight, that he is making that face for me.  _ Me _ .

“You do not even know how rare it is to find someone who can surrender so completely into a position like that,” he says, squeezing me like a child. “In my utter hubris, I did not choose a beginner form.”

“Did you know I was gonna… come unglued?”

“Oh Rose…” He runs a hand through his bronze hair. “A prominent teacher of Semenawa, Riccardo Wilkes says, ‘The tormenting rope is made for souls that have that sadness within.’ He says it’s a pilgrimage for both parties. What you did was brave, and truthfully, normal.”

“I feel a lot better,” I sigh. “Lighter.”

“The emotional release can be intense. I started practicing Semenawa when my mother died. It helped.”

He discloses this like a very tender secret. I slide my hand into his and tangle our fingers together as if to say I’m holding his story as delicately as he’s holding me right now.

His face rests against mine, his thick lashes bat against my forehead like butterfly wings. I take small, shallow breaths in utter disbelief that this is actually happening to me right now. I try to stay in the moment, just as he taught me on the ropes.

“You know my name,” I say.

“Rose Tico,” he whispers, his mouth quirking.

My heart can’t handle hearing it on his lips, a surge of enchantment triple kicks against my chest.

“I told Ren no vanillas,” he explains as if admitting a great embarrassment, “But his cousin insisted with vague threats of familial blackmail.”

“That sounds just like Kaydel.”

“Ha. Well, I vetted you all and truthfully, I was doubtful at best, until I came across your page.”

I hold my breath, waiting for him to continue. He takes one of my hands and traces his thumb absently over the peaks of my knuckles.

“Your photos reminded me of ...that time. With my mother.”

The pictures flood into my head again: all my selfies with Paige during her chemo. God, my feed must be hundreds of those ridiculous shots of us with different crazy filters, always with the same ominous chemo chair in the background and a glimpse here and there of the tubes coming out of her. 

I never thought anyone would look at those photos and instantly register the hours of treatment, the months putting hope in stats and surgeons and drugs. The fucking waiting.

“You saw my pictures and thought I would be a good fit for this party, and… the scene?”

“That’s not quite it.” He adjusts his weight against me with the slightest hint of apprehension. “I suppose I simply wanted to meet you.”

“Me?” I squeak.

“Yes, you, Miss Tico.” He strums my skin affectionately. “You’re charming. And indomitable. You never stopped seeing wonder all around you, even when things... went poorly.”

“Dunno… I’m kind of a Debbie Downer these days.”

The way his facial skin pulls against my cheek tells me those copper brows are lifting scoldingly.

“You’re grieving, and more importantly,  _ you’re surviving _ .”

“How long do you let yourself… be pissed, I guess?” I ask.

“I’m still wounded,” he says quietly. “But it gets better.”

The gaping well of feelings starts to brim again. Hot tears roll down my cheeks. When a few splash on his freckled arm, he takes hold of my shoulders and turns me on his lap so I can see his face.

“I swear, Rose,” he says in his Dom voice. “It gets better.”

I nod, too tearful to say ‘yes, sir,’ but appreciate the intensity with which he wants to instill this hope in me. 

It will get better.

His features soften, but he doesn’t wipe away my tears as if they’re a problem. He holds my face, strokes my hair and makes space for the flood as it rises and then falls as quickly as it came.

My joints feel like jello, my eyes are still watery but I bleat out a kind of ‘thank you,’ and then collapse back against him.

One of the caterers appears, coming down the hallway.

“You must be starved,” the General murmurs to me. “You there,” he hails the caterer with that unquestioned authority that makes my knees weak.

Not ten seconds later, he’s ordered the catering service to bring a spread up to his quarters, and he’s bridal-carrying me up a long flight of stairs to the third level.  _ To his room. _

Close by, the party thunders on with music and cheering, but we might as well be in a different dimension. He takes me to a quieter wing of the house; close to the master suite, I assume excitedly as he unlocks a huge, solid oak door.

The guest suite is not particularly large, typical for nineteenth century bedrooms. Kaydel’s cousin has towed the line between vintage furnishings and modern comforts throughout the mansion, but this room is the least Victorian space I’ve seen so far and it’s kind of a relief. Modern furnishings and textures fill the space with luxe comfort.

The General switches on a lamp and settles me with a blanket on a midcentury couch of emerald mohair. He strides about the room like a king in his castle: adjusting the cushions so I’m propped up like a queen, placing his keys and phone neatly beside his open suitcase, pouring me a glass of water. All of his detailed attentions feel like foreplay to me; I’m a sucker for a dude who feathers his nest.

I’m still so flayed open to him that I barely realize I’m wearing nothing but a bra and a thong until the cool air from a cracked window nips across my skin. I pull a fluffy, knit blanket over my shoulders, feeling suddenly shy.

He hands me the glass of water.

“Are you cold?” he asks, already crossing the room to shut the window.

“A little.”

There’s a timid knock at the door.

“That’s your food,” the General says.

But when the heavy oak swings open, it’s not the catering service.

Kaydel, Poe and Finn are standing outside. Professor trails a little ways behind, not fully privy to the moment and yet clearly unwilling to leave Kaydel’s orbit.

“Hey!” I leap up and scurry to the door, wrapping the blanket tighter around me. “Guys! What’s up!”

“Um, wow, what’s up… hmm let’s see,” Kaydel scoffs. “You got tied up by your hair, yelled like a banshee and then disappeared with a strange man.”

“We just wanted to make sure you’re ok,” Finn says.

“I’m fine.” I let them see the dopey, dreamy smile I’ve been making for the past half hour when the General isn’t looking. “Like, more than fine.”

Poe gives me a knowing nod.

“Guys.” He puts his hands on Kaydel and Finn’s shoulders. “Our work here is done.”

Kaydel looks like she’s about to argue, but Poe gives her a meaningful squeeze.

“Thank you all so much for checking in,” I say as a loving ‘fuck off’. “I’ll find you later, ok?”

They turn to go and Poe salutes me with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows.

As the General closes the door, I ask myself whether later means after I’ve recovered from the sheer physicality of what I just did, or whether later means… like, after  _ other activities. _ It seems my host is contemplating that question too. The catering service arrives two seconds later with a cart of fresh fruit and light charcuterie.

“I recommend that you spend some time here, coming down from your experience,” he says like he might not let me go if I wanted to. Not that I want to.

Possessiveness over him swirls again in my stomach. I return to the couch and flop, exhausted, into the plush cushions. 

“As long as I’m not keeping you from… your other party duties,” I say, fighting the urge to climb him like a tree right now.

He chuckles. With the quiet clinking of glass and cutlery, he fills a plate for me with a little bit of everything.

“Here, eat something.” 

He sets the plate on the glass coffee table with a cocktail napkin. I can’t help but scarf down the fancy cheeses, the pancetta and neat slices of fruit. I guess getting tied up really takes it out of you.

“To be quite frank, this party is already off the rails,” he sniffs, returning to the antique sideboard to decant a tumbler of whiskey for himself. “Ren and Phasma had an aerial silk shibari performance choreographed, which could not take place when he disappeared and refused to answer his phone.”

“Oh god…” I murmur. “I think I know what Kylo did. Or maybe I should say  _ who _ he did. He went off with my friend, Rey.”

The General’s lips twist ever so slightly but I sense his frustration spike like I have a little meter in my body measuring his feelings. Whatever we just did has made me acutely sensitive toward him.

“Well it is Ren’s party,” he sighs. “And I suppose he’ll be inclined to forgive me for quitting it on the same grounds.”

Oh.

_ Oh. _

My chest flutters like flapping wings, I’m practically lifting off the ground. He’s gonna stay here with me and, like, ditch the party? 

I bite my tongue to keep from letting loose a happy squeal.

Amid the luxurious patterns and textures of the room, his ember-red hair glows like an elegant flourish. He sinks into the cushion beside me. His movements are so graceful, the golden surface of whiskey in his glass barely swirls as he sits down. 

His gaze narrows, raking over me searchingly.

“You’re surprised,” he observes. “Did you think I would abandon you here?” 

Fuck, he reads me too well.

“I don’t know…” I grin sheepishly. “After what just happened, I kinda don’t know where Flower the sub ends and Rose Tico begins.”

His face shadows; the soft curve of his lips drop as his mouth tightens, defining that tasty little muscle in his jaw. My hands fist inside the tangled blanket, oh how I’d love to just bite that sensuous chin right now.

“That is entirely my fault,” he says.

“Why?”

“Typically in the scene, boundaries are very clearly defined,” he explains.

The anticipation in my chest deflates like a balloon. Is he going to tell me this is all just casual play? Am I insane to hope it’s more?

“I, however, withheld something,” he continues, pausing as if to sort his words carefully.

The tension is unbearable.

“Like, how you’d seen my pictures before?” I prompt, begging him to complete his thought.

“Miss Tico…” he trails off.

Sliding across the couch cushion, he fits himself around my huddled shape. He tucks an arm behind my shoulders and his thigh kisses up to mine where my leg pokes out from underneath the blanket. My shoulder and leg are screaming in unison, ‘he’s touching me, he’s touching me!’

“...I like you,” he says, his lips slanting into a lopsided smile.

“Oh…!” Happy shock pours into my veins like burning gasoline. I cover my mouth with a shy hand, not that anything could conceal the foolish, ear-to-ear grin that’s splitting across my face.

“I really…” I pant, my breath coming up short, “...I really like you too. Like _ , a lot _ .”

He looks down at my lips and then meets my gaze, his stormy green eyes heavy with desire. With just a glance, he’s caught me again and bound me up in a narrow space where only he and I exist. 

The distance between us closes. 

He leans forward and kisses me, soft and open.

Fireworks.

His mouth yields against mine; I taste burning, spicy whiskey and dizzying delight.  _ He likes me. _ I’m flying, spinning in the air on a line tangled with his desire. His wanting pours into me with every ebb and flow of his lips, every parry of his tongue. Fuck, he’s  _ savoring _ me. His kisses are a gentle, worshipful devouring.

A low growl stirs in his chest. His fingers wind tightly in a fist full of hair and he pulls me into him, shifting my weight off center so I fall into his lap. I’m still his doll, still eager to bend to his every command. I push into him, pressing my tits against his firm chest like two pillowy teases. I slide my knees around his hips so he can feel, between slacks and lace, the heat of my cunt.

“I want you to...um...” I sip a fortifying breath, my nerves jittering. “... _ fuck _ me.”

He tips his head back and studies me. Through damp, parted lips, he’s breathing hard enough to be sprinting. A low, animal moan rumbles deep inside him, a beast awakening,  _ seething _ . His pupils blow so wide, his eyes look black.

“My darling girl,” he purrs, satiny and dark. “How good of you to ask.”

Quicker than I can react, he scoops me up and stands. He carries me across the room and shoves my back up against the near wall. Crowding around me, he pins me against the smooth wallpaper. His kisses have become predatory, teeth graze the vulnerable skin of my neck where my pulse flutters for him. I claw his hair and his back with greedy thirst,  _ who the fuck is this guy? _

He grinds against me, the cruel edges of his belt buckle digging into the tender inside of my thigh. 

“Oh!” I mewl.

“Keep quiet, my girl,” he rasps. “I won’t have anyone in this house hearing the sounds you’re going to make for me, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir!” I squeak, melting into the wall.

“Those noises are for me only, understood?”

“Yes!” 

_ Smack! _

His hand makes contact with the thick flesh of my ass.

“Yes, what, petal?” he scolds.

My skin stings, heat blossoms in my fat cheek.

“Yes, sir!”

He kisses the side of my mouth tenderly. His long breaths on my neck begin to charge my skin with tense, prickling electricity.

“I want you to be very quiet for this next flying exercise,” he whispers. “Can you do that?”

My heart punches.  _ Flying? _

“Yes, General!” I answer, quivering in anticipation.

Keeping me pinned to the wall, he grips each thigh. Quickly, he extends his arms, pushing my back up the wall like a weight-lifting move. Uh, this is kinda high for a short person like me!

I gulp and twist my fingers through his fine copper hair, anchoring myself to him at this terrifying height. My knees shake, my legs drip with exposed arousal. He stares at my soaked cunt; his exhales have grown gritty with exertion and lust.

“Why, look at this.” He raises his eyebrows with teasing malice. “Your lovely pussy looks good enough to eat.”

It’s all I can do not to scream. He’d better not fucking drop me while he’s… hnggg...

With a grunt, he swings my legs over his shoulders so I’m leaning against the wall with my drooling clutch  _ directly in his face. _

“I suppose I should have divested you of these earlier,” he murmurs. One hand reaches up between my thighs. He snakes his fingers through the soft curls between my legs, grazing my damp petals and he closes his fist around the gusset of my panties. He catches my eye, his lips curling into a smug little smile.

_ Riiiiiiiiip. _

He tears my thong without breaking eye contact. The fragile lace gives like tissue paper, drawing clear, delicate strings from my pussy: humiliating little tattle-tales of my desperation.

I shriek.

“Fuck you, that’s my only pair!” I bark down at him. “And they were nice!”

Only the strain of this current position keeps him from punishing me immediately. His pulse throbs in a vein on his neck.

“You are going to pay for that noisy outburst, Flower,” he snarls. “Don’t you think I’ll buy you whatever pussy frills you want?”

My mouth drops open.

“And now, I’m going to do what I’ve been thinking about since I laid eyes on you this evening…” 

With a rakish smirk, his face disappears in my throbbing quim. 

He noses aside my folds and teases the needy, swollen petals of my pussy. His lips close around my clit with soft-sucking pressure. Long, unhurried stripes with his tongue send me blinding jolts. I twitch and jerk when he hits the right spots. How can he turn me on and freak me out so much at the same time?

“God...hnggg…” My spine arches, the back of my head grinds the wallpaper. I writhe with his exquisite torture.

“You can’t escape, Flower,” he murmurs, muffled by my intimate place.

The tip of his tongue finds the shy underside of my clit and pushes back the hood. He’s always coaxing me. I smile, panting. He’s always drawing me out. I loosen my hold on his hair and start to  _ feel. _

“Oh, shit!”

I slip for one gut-plunging second. Terror rockets through me. But I only fall an inch before he’s got me. For a moment, I wonder if he let me fall that tiny bit just to show me that I’m secure with him, I’m  _ held. _

He pushes my ass higher until my head almost hits the ceiling, opening my legs deeper to him. When his tongue unfurls inside my pussy, I swallow a scream and rock my hips with the mounting pressure.

“Yes, General! Oh fucking yes!”

Energy like white light threads through my stomach, building as his tongue picks up speed. 

His arms shake with the effort of keeping me against the wall, so I press my spine against the vintage wallpaper, distributing my weight for him.

“Good girl,” he grunts. “Such a perfect girl.”

But my helpfulness is about to run out, because I’m barely in control anymore. My stomach fills and valleys with quick breaths, sweat makes my skin start to slide on the wallpaper. The spaces between all my joints are melting and I’m falling apart around him. When he pushes me to the very brink, I fear I’ll fall if I come. 

The General pulls his face from between my thighs and looks up at me with a drunk expression. His lips and chin are damp and swollen red like a cheeky boy with stolen watermelon.

“Trust me!” he commands.

“I do!” I cry shakily. “I trust you!”

As if this confession dismantles some hidden fear, my body gives over in surrender. 

The threads of brilliant energy in my core coalesce and detonate in a blinding burst of release. I’m suspended in it for a moment, like flying on the ropes. When my head clears, I find that I’ve slid off the wall and into the General’s arms.

He carries me across the room to the bed and we collapse into it together.

I roll onto my back and sigh, my whole body humming with satisfaction. Beside me, he chuckles softly into the depths of the linen comforter.

“What’s so funny?” I nudge his ribs with my elbow.

His face lifts from the blanket; his hair rumples roguishly and his cheeks flush with an athletic glow. 

“I don’t think anyone has ever given over to me as readily as you have, twice now,” he says.

I purse my lips to prevent the giddiest, dumbest smile from taking over my face.

“Well, I’ve never been fucked into the ceiling before,” I say, letting the smile win after all.

His laugh reaches into the depths of me, like an invitation be my truest self. He stretches a hand across the bed and pulls me into him: a little spoon to his tall, narrow one. With a deep exhale, he settles, sheltering me.

I try to relax and feel my soft edges pillow against his firm structure. My fingertips wander up and down his freckled, golden-haired arm. Constellations of amber spots on his skin blur in my tired vision, but my damp, hot little clutch still pounds with the rhythm of my pulse, revved up and ready. 

I squeeze my thighs together for that little bit of friction, my clit stings back at me, ‘Is that really all?’ The stirring length pressing insistently against my ass tells me the General might feel the same way.

With a grunt, I flip onto my side. His eyes are closed, his lashes like copper bird’s wings resting on the high ridge of his cheek. I nibble at his chin.

“I want more,” I breathe into the pale column of his neck. The corners of his mouth draw up, slow and lazy, the way lions and tigers dream about prey. Like he was dreaming about me.

“Insatiable girl,” he chuckles.

Beast-like, his shoulders work up and down as he pushes onto his forearms: a predator rising from the deep. His head lifts; glittering jewel eyes open in narrow slits like a dragon disturbed, scathing meanly over my nearly-naked body.

“I suppose we aren’t finished, are we?” He smirks. Something long, hot and devil-hard stabs my thigh through his trousers.

I squeak, heart pounding.

His fingers thread with my hair and he pulls my head back suddenly, exposing my throat. I mew and he tugs me onto my back, rolling my legs apart. I relent with alacrity, opening for him, parting the lips of my pussy with a thirsty little smacking sound.

“So eager for me,” he growls darkly, “So ready.”

Oh fuck, I’ve been ready for him all night. I’ve been ready for this for so long.  _ Take me and don’t let me fall. _

The raven-wing bra doesn’t have clasps, he catches the bottom edge of it and slides it ever-so-delicately upward, releasing my breasts one, two, free. A low, gratified sound rumbles inside him as my nipples perk and pebble in the cool air. 

He keeps my head clamped down by my hair and I stare up at the elaborate molding on the ceiling, watching him instead with every inch of my sensitive body. Fingertips slide, feather-soft over my heightened surfaces. The sound of a zipper whispers and cloth hushes up over his skin. A bare, masculine leg pushes between my knees, spreading my legs further for him. 

The warm skin of his torso meets mine; hard surfaces brush against my soft ones. One hand molds around the lush give of my breast; his squeeze is just tight enough to tell me he’s beginning to untether his lust. 

_ Oh, fuck. _

Warm, damp heat surrounds the other tender bud with torturous pressure. Suckling lips and grazing teeth ramp up my needy clutch from desperation to agony.

“Ah! God…” I gasp. He’s gonna kill me like this.

My hips writhe impatiently against the rough linen comforter, desperate to have him deep and sure inside me.  _ Keep him forever. _

“Patience, petal,” he purrs. “I memorized your sex menu, darling girl. You remember, the one you filled out at the beginning of the party? It’s still in my pocket.” he hisses into my ear, sending sparks down my spine. “I know what you like.”

His provocations jolt my clit like 220 volts. I’m buzzing, almost audibly  _ humming _ with arousal; one thrust and this whole place is going down in flames.

“Wha… what are you gonna do to me?” I whimper.

I try scrambling but he holds me down with a gentle scolding sound.

“I intend to check every box on your list.”

My mind whirls with what he could possibly mean. Is he thinking about the spanking thing, or the biting? Oh god, did I say something about fast fucking?!  _ Shit! _ My blood swirls and boils with maddening suspense.

“Do you wish for something else?” he drawls, patient as a snake. “Do you want to stop?”

I’m shaking with anticipation.

“Uh… no,” I whine.

“Well then…” 

He snatches me up in a violent, sweeping kiss, inhaling, ravaging and stripping me bare to my most primal thoughts. Letting go of my hair, his hands roam my body: groping the soft curve of my ass, squeezing the tender globes of my breasts, groping my belly and thighs. It’s all his, and it all delights him with soft-grunts and sighs of passion. 

His deep, searching kisses swallow up my squeaks and cries. My heels churn against the linen comforter, slip-sliding my achy, swollen sex and the glaze of hot slick between my thighs. I buck and cant my hips for some relief, but he catches me, pinning me down with the firm slab of his torso.

“Enough of that, Flower,” he scolds. “I  _ will _ give you what you want.”

I struggle harder and he holds me down: forcing me to surrender. He pushes my limbs down like a gardener snipping away vines. My options fall to the ground and I’m left panting up at him, eyes wide. I breathe in the realization that he will give me what I need. He’s asking me to depend on him.

I’m suffocating on my pounding heart. He looms over me like a mountain, a monolith that won’t be surpassed. ‘ _ Let me have you,  _ his cool, domineering face says.

_ Take me, _ my heart flutters,  _ take me, take me, take me. _

He rears back and lines up his cock with me.

Then he splits me open.

I scream.

“Hush, my girl!” he says in my ear.

I’m so wet and ready, he thrusts all the way to his root, pushing my walls apart with exquisite force. 

_ There it is.  _ That stretch-tight, aching, trembling nearness. My channel flutters around him, swallowing him greedily, reveling in his deep presence.

“That’s my girl.” He breathes against my neck, his lips curved to my skin.

Oh god, he’s so filling, I can barely stand it at first. My pussy grips him, dragging against his veiny thickness as he slides in and out. His cockhead kisses the end of me, again and again, forcing his way into my heart.

I’ve never been fucked like this, with such intense focus and meaning imbued into every point of contact. His love is surrounding, pervading,  _ never letting go. _

We speed up, moving together, our rhythm escalates in breathy, gasping unison.

“Hng… Rose...” His voice fizzles down my spine and bursts into pleasure. He eclipses everything with long, hard-ramming,  _ pistoning _ thrusts of his big cock.

I stutter on the edge of my release, it billows closer and then fades, swells again as he drives into me, pounding with abandon. I see a great cloud looming on the horizon and I tremble. 

If I let go this is the end for me. 

I’m never going back. I can never be the same.

He groans and buries his face in my neck, his pace going jagged with release, flooding me with his passion. I run my fingers in his hair and release the last tendrils of my apprehension.

“I love you,” I whisper.

And I come.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’ve come to the end! I just want to say a huge thank you to @ElfMaidenodLight and @phelfromgrace. Your editing help means a lot to me, I really appreciate your time.
> 
> Be sure to click on this collection and show some love to the GingerRose community, so many truly delightful stories to read, I know you’ll enjoy!

I wake up once at 3:37am, according to the precocious designer alarm clock on the bedside table. 

Rain patters on the rooftop; a quiet, muffled lull as if the Amidala ancestors built their house to remain unbothered by such things. 

I blink, taking in the pearl-grey light of a Christmas Eve moon. It floods the room with silver, morphing the lavish furnishings into a fantasy landscape, an ephemeral wilderness.

I roll over, feeling a little lost.

He’s lying next to me, his limbs curved around mine.

_ Not lost,  _ my heart squeezes _. _

His naked body washed in mercury light reminds me of a Greek statue. Carved, muscular architecture with twisted sheets draped about his hips like Oceanus at the Trevi Fountain (don’t be impressed, I’ve only seen it in the Lizzie McGuire movie.)

I dare to trace the little divot in his shoulder and follow the curve of his chest with my fingertips. His breathing changes, but his feather lashes don’t twitch. 

It would be greedy of me to push back the loose sprigs of fire-red hair from his forehead —completely selfish. 

I toy with the temptation, then succumb. 

I reach up tentatively and slide my fingers into his luscious silken hair, moving that roguish red curtain away from his soft, kind eyes.

I don’t even mean to let my knuckles graze the high ridge of his cheekbone, following the smooth skin of his moonbeam-fair cheek, but I do. 

I want him so bad, I ache. Not in the way my cunt and tummy ache right now, but in my heart. My hand lingers by that perfect mouth, always on the edge of a wry smirk. I want to keep him forever.

His hand catches mine. I’m about to squeak like a thief apprehended, but then his eyes open.

And I know he belongs to me.

I know.

He brings my hand to his lips and kisses. Veneration saturates his jewel-green gaze. Not sure what I did to deserve that, especially from him. He catches a knuckle between his teeth: teasing, always pushing me.

I melt for him, moaning softly.

Grasping my chin, he leans into me, searing my lips with his.

I come undone. Big tears roll down my cheeks like rain drops plinking on the roof. My lashes bat, catching diamond droplets on their feathery edges.

_ ‘You’re too much,’ _ a snakey voice in my head scolds.

_ ‘Never too much,’ _ his big hands say, wrapping around my cheeks and pulling my head into the sturdy planes of his chest.

We make love again, slow and meditative this time. He pushes into me like a gentle question; his thrusts are patient, longing, asking. I unravel in response. My low, wanton cries echo off the high ceiling and mingle with the sounds of rain.

When we finish, it’s like we’ve arrived at an answer, though I drift off to sleep again wondering his name.

  
  


I wake up again, slow blinking and dry mouthed. All of my muscles scream with soreness. I know before I open my eyes that the bed beside me is cold. I reach across the rumpled sheets anyway, as if to force myself to remember that he wasn’t made up. 

Sure enough, I find the telltale ripples of cotton where he lay beside me. Damn if it doesn’t smell like him too: masculine soap with traces of hemp rope and whiskey.

I’m so busy mooning over him, I almost miss a note with sophisticated handwriting resting on the pillowcase with two Tylenol.

_ Rose— _

_ I regret that I have some tasks that require immediate attention. The rest of your clothes, along with your phone, etc, are waiting for you on the sofa. _

_ Forgive my hasty exit, there is no universe in which I would rather do anything other than wake up with you right now. In fact, I intend to do so with as much regularity as you will permit. _

_ Yours, _

_ Armitage Hux _

The last line ker-thumps in my chest over and over. I bury my face in his pillow and just float in that feeling and his goddamn perfect male smell.

That’s his name. Armitage Hux.

I think about it over and over,  _ Armitage Hux, Armitage Hux, Armitage Hux _ until I nearly fall back to sleep.

The only thing that gets me out of bed is the tempting, open mouth of his fancy carry-on, perched innocently on the other side of the room. Paige always scolded me for being a snoop, but I can’t help it.

I creep over to his suitcase and peer inside.

More white shirts. Grey slacks. A pair of black track pants.

His socks and black Calvins sit neatly folded in the pocket.

And there’s something else.

“Oh my god, he didn’t!” I squeal with horrified delight.

Deep inside the pocket of his suitcase, I find my ripped pair of black lace panties from  _ La Belle et La Bête _ . I stuff them back out of sight, my skin prickling with sweat: equal parts embarrassment and arousal.

The upper pocket has more interesting treasures: a Russian novel, his cologne (with which I immediately and conspicuously souse myself,) and his passport from the UK. This last item I flip open greedily.

His picture makes my lips spread wide across my face. He looks so severe, like he’s an evil dictator posing for the portrait hanging over his citizens’ mantels or a drug lord getting his mug shot. I drink in his name again; only when my eyes land on his address do I realize this is the most useful bit of information I could have discovered.

_ Armitage B. Hux _

_ 26 Gramercy Park South #9G  _

_ New York, NY 10003 _

I almost throw down the passport and whoop for joy, what are the chances I’d come to a new town, bone my dream guy and we live in the same city? I mean, besides the obvious Frank Sinatra line about the ubiquity of New York.  _ This could work! _

Fuck, he’s even got an address in a posh neighborhood.

I scramble over and scoop my phone off the couch, wanting to know exactly how many minutes by light rail it will take to get there from my dump in Murray Hill. 

But my phone nearly slides out of my hand when I see what’s arranged on the couch. He set out my bra and corset with painful neatness; he’s folded my satin skirt in a crisp-edged square, so perfect it’s a kind of love letter.

_ He’s gonna ruin me, _ my heart throbs.

After I dress, I check my phone and immediately wish I hadn’t.

There are three missed calls from Kaydel, five from Finn and one from Rey.

Also, it's eleven o’clock.

The pile-up of texts isn’t any less daunting. Mostly good-natured ribbing from Kaydel, but the most recent text is from Rey.

_ “Hey, Ro-ro! Everyone’s in the kitchen, Ben’s fixing up a little breakfast. Come down when you’re ready!” _

I snort when I finish reading. I guess I should be glad Rey shagged our host, since it comes with a first-class kitchen pass. I tap out a reply.

_ “Be right there!” _

Wistfully, I cast a sentimental glance about his room. If I stare really hard, I think I can see my hair oil permanently staining the white shell wallpaper. A pleasure moment, hung in perpetuity. The side of my mouth curls; I wonder how many of  _ those _ kinds of ghosts live in this house.

The hallways of Amidala House are surprisingly tidy as I search for the kitchen, it would seem I’m one of the last partiers to wake and wander about in last night’s garb. I suppose I must be the only smear-eyed, bedraggled guest doing the walk of shame until I get to the kitchen and find my friends: all satisfyingly disheveled.

Kaydel has lost her shoulder harness. Her eye-charcoal dribbles halfway down her glowering cheeks, but Professor doesn’t seem to mind. He’s wrapped Kaydel in his suit jacket and sits next to her on the expansive quartz countertop, force-feeding her a plate of eggs.

“And then the foam was just like… everywhere, I couldn’t see him but we didn’t stop making out…” Poe’s spirits are clearly unfazed. He looks like he got hit by a truck, but seems altogether chipper as he sits with Rey at the breakfast bar.

Rey is perhaps the only one of my group who looks clean and put together. A damp ponytail, band tee and boxer shorts hint at the doting treatment of a certain six-foot-four dude who’s currently turned toward the gas range, managing a group of happily sizzling skillets. The smell tantalizes me.

I look all around for the General, but he’s not here. 

_ Damn. _

Finn spots me. He drops his fork onto his plate with a startling clatter and stands up quickly. 

“Rose! There you are!”

“Heyyy…” I draw out the vowel casually, as if that will keep my friends from hounding me about last night.

They hound me anyway.

“Well if it isn’t the star of the night herself!” Kaydel drawls. “Tell us everything!”

“Yeah, Rose, the whole party was talking about you.” Poe’s voice vibrates with too much caffeine. “Everyone’s like, obsessed with Semenawa now.”

“That General guy, did you know he’s the one who organized the whole party?”

“Coffee,” I croak, instead of answering their maelstrom of questions.

I settle with a large, steaming mug and a plate of eggs in a plush wingback chair (seriously, who keeps wingback chairs in the kitchen?). Ice-pink curtains swath an enormous picture window; I stare out through the droplet-embossed pane, watching the willows bend in the rainy wind. 

My friends chatter about the party. 

They alledge there was an intense finale involving foam that devolved into a free-for-all ass-grabbing sesh, but I barely listen. My guess is that things went way off from the General’s plan, but then again, the party planner was pleasantly indisposed. Instantly, I warm at the thought of him. Where is he right now?

After what I’ve experienced over the last fourteen hours, ass-grabbing sounds incredibly banal. I discipline myself not to lean back with my mug of coffee and sigh loudly with an imperious “ah, youth.” But I’m too jittery to be that smug, I just want to see the General. We have so much to talk about after last night.

When Ben brings his own heaping plate of eggs to sit beside Rey, I perk up. It’s all I can do not to pounce on him with questions about his friend.

“So.” Thank god, he brings it up first. “You and Hux, huh?”

“Yeah,” I reply excitedly. “Do you know where he is?”

Ben chews slowly, his enormous, slanted lips work like he’s doing me a great favor to exert the same effort in his mind. 

“He had to return the kegs before noon,” he drones in his deep voice. “I didn’t like the beer they offered with the catering service, so we worked it out with a local brewery.”

A huff of air deflates from my lungs. I don’t get to see the General because Solo had to have fancy beer?

“Don’t you have staff to do that?” I say tartly, too tired to hide my annoyance.

“Rose,” Rey reprimands, cozying up to Ben. “Don't be beastly.”

Ben shrugs and shovels eggs into his mouth.

“He’ll be back.”

But the General isn’t back when we finish breakfast, nor when we gather our things and prepare to head back to the Connixes’. We’re standing on the marble steps with our coats at the front of the house as Kaydel brings the Lexus around the circle drive, and still, I’m staring down the driveway, watching for a shock of red hair.

He never appears.

Rain saturates the estate’s rolling acres in deep jewel-tones: as warm and green a Christmas Eve as this place has remembered for two hundred years. I watch the white pearl of a mansion disappear in the rearview mirror as we drive away.

“Oh no!” I cry, my heart breaking.

“What!”

“Rose, are you ok?”

“Fuck!” I slump in my seat. “I forgot to get his number.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Poe chimes in. “Just have Rey text her hunka’ brooding love.”

“Of course,” Rey soothes me. “But Ben did tell me he won’t be available for the rest of the day, he’s visiting his grandmother for Christmas out at their cabin.”

“Add him on Facebook!” Kaydel suggests.

I search for his profile, hurriedly clicking through every Armitage Hux on the eastern seaboard. He isn’t on Instagram either.

“Sorry, Rose.” Finn tries to comfort me. “You’ll have to wait until after Christmas to get in contact.”

I swallow my irritation. Obviously, he would have my number since we supplied the party with all our information. He’ll just text me when he’s done with everything. 

In this brief, circumstantial moment of free fall, I have to believe he’ll catch me.

Friendly rows of Victorian houses along Abercorn Street wink past the car window, chiding me to be merry and bright.

I smile back. I haven’t felt this merry or bright in a long time.

It’s nice to have somebody to feel good about.

  
  


Christmas Eve at the Connixes is wild. 

I stop checking my phone when things really heat up in Code Names, who knew Poe was such a shark?I’m amused to learn that every year the Connixes do an ice cream sculpture contest. Our fingers are frozen and I’m about to puke up like a pint of those addictive little red hots, but I win with a cute Rudolph face. Everyone cries during “It’s a Wonderful Life.” 

I don’t even notice that the General hasn’t texted me until we’ve retreated into our bedrooms. The blue screen illuminates my face in the dark.

“Did he text you?” Rey scoots over to my side of the bed.

“Nope.” My screen goes black with a click.

“I’ll bet he went with Ben to the cabin.”

“I just feel bad that he left me a nice note and I didn’t even write one back,” I admit, feeling my confidence weaken. “Now I don’t have any way of contacting him. It looks like I ditched him, and after everything...”

“It sounds like he’s a really special person, Rose.” She squeezes my arm. “The people who matter most —they won’t run off just because things are a little messy.”

The corners of my eyes sting, moisture spills down the sides of my face.

“Rey?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for letting me be a little messy too,” I sniff. “Like,  _ really _ messy.”

“Aw, come here.” She wraps her arms around me. “Life can be shit, and sometimes it’s doubly shitty because we don’t know how to help each other.”

I wipe my cheeks with the palms of my hands.

“I think just being with me is help enough, ya know?” I say. “Thank you.”

“I have an idea,” Rey whispers. “Can we text Paige? Just… tell her Merry Christmas?”

My gut bobs with sadness, but with the descent comes a rush of closeness. A kind of cathartic hope lifts me up higher for having sunk deeper.  _ Push and pull. _

“Yeah.”

I pick up my phone again.

Her number is still there, along with texts from six months ago.

“Chocolate or vanilla?” was my last text to her on June 21, 2019 at 2:41pm.

“Chocolate, always.” she replied three minutes later.

I stare at the screen for the longest time.

Beside me, Rey’s phone makes little bubble sounds. She’s typing fast, a stream of words. My thoughts feel dammed up again.

“Hey.” I tap the keys. 

This is too hard.

_ Feel it, Flower. Don’t hold it in. _

“Do you remember the Christmas when Mom was obsessed with the idea of taking us to see Santa in River Park Square? We were such little brats; you’re sticking your tongue out in that picture and that poor rando dude with a fake beard looks stoned out of his mind, haha. 

Mom was like, so stressed, she dragged us out of the mall and let us run around the park for a while so she could have a moment’s peace. I can’t believe how much shit she took without murdering us. I really hope I’m like her someday. 

“Do you remember the lights on the pavilion? You told me it was a spaceship, and we could fly away together if we thought hard enough at the same time. Remember how we held our breath? I thought your eyes were going to bug out of your head, haha.

“That’s kind of how I felt when you were sick. Like, if I thought hard enough, I could just pull you out of it, you know? You could fly away and be safe. When you didn’t wake up after that surgery, I sorta thought it was because I didn’t think hard enough. I didn’t try hard enough. 

“So, my brain knows that’s not true, obviously, but my body held onto it. Like, for a long time. Last night I had this crazy, intense emotional experience where I let go. For the first time, I don’t feel that same tightness inside, like I’m trying to get the pavilion to fly in my mind, or trying to keep you from dying. I’m just here, and you know what? I feel you here too.

“Maybe we weren’t trying to make the pavilion fly after all, we were just being together. That’s all I really wanted when I got tight and twisty inside this year, I wanted you to stay with me. But the secret to being together isn’t thinking hard enough or trying hard enough. It’s just being. 

“Thank you for being my best friend.

“Merry Christmas, love you, sis.”

I hit send and the text bubbles on my screen next to an unsatisfying red exclamation point. Her phone number isn’t on my plan anymore, but I’m relieved somebody else doesn’t have it yet. In a way, the inbetween of sent and not-sent feels like the right place to reach her.

“Did you send it?” Rey asks quietly.

“Yeah,” I reply, my eyes watery again.

Rey’s hand finds mine; our fingers thread and lock so I can’t let go. She’s here with me.

“Thank you,” I choke.

Rey squeezes my hand and we fall asleep, just like that. 

  
  


“Just stay there ok?”

“Poe… What are you doing? This is my house!”

“Your mom and Finn and I worked it all out while you girls were shopping!”

“What? How did you…”

“It’s a surprise, ok? Stay on the stairs.”

Kaydel, Rey and I huddle in the narrow staircase like corralled children. Crouching in with stairwell’s rich, mahogany woodwork and old floral wallpaper feels like living in a vintage tin-type print or a Norman Rockwell painting about kids waiting for Christmas morning.

“Ow, Kaydel, you’re sitting on my foot,” Rey squawks, rocking back on the creaky step. 

“This is dumb, I want my presents,” Kaydel whines.

The wood floors in the living room moan and creak with furtive rushing about. Slippered feet bustle around the downstairs and we can hear Eunice giggle. Finn’s low tones echo through the walls and Poe yammers like he’s directing traffic. 

Golden lights blink on, casting an inviting glow from just around the corner. A metal door squeaks and the heady scent of spicy baked sweetness fills the house.

“Oh my god,” I breathe, “Cinnamon rolls!”

“Hnnng fuck yes…” Kaydel moans.

“I could eat five cinnamon rolls right now.” Rey inhales deeply.

“Who isn’t obsessed with unwrapping chunks of gooey bread from its soft, sugary coil?” I fantasize. “Sticky fingertips coated with icing and then dusted with cinnamon sugar…”

“Stahp!” Kaydel shoves my shoulder. “You’re gonna make me come!”

Finn appears in the doorway.

“Alright! You guys can come down!”

The immediate bum-rush is like instinct: apparently we haven’t outgrown it. The three of us leap to our feet, squealing, yelling and shoving each other to be the first one to the living room.

When we round the corner, we stop dead in our tracks.

Eunice and the boys got stockings for everybody. They line the mantle, each one brimming cheerily with candy and trinkets, our names markered onto the white fur in Poe’s horrible handwriting.

“Awww… you guys…”

“Cuuuute!”

Rey’s eyes go glassy, but she keeps up the happy gushing for the sake of Finn and Poe. The two of them grin proudly as we dig into our stockings. It’s all candy, Hot Wheels and the weirdest shades of nail polish and lip gloss I have ever seen. But it’s fucking perfect.

Once the stocking excitement has died down, we settle around the living room. I curl up on the cream-colored settee with an afgan and a plate of warm cinnamon rolls, perfectly content to unwrap those lil sugar babies all morning, presents be damned.

“To Rey, from Poe…”

“...To Finn from Rose…”

“...To Kaydel, from  _ Santa _ ! Ooo!”

Paper shreds, the stacks of colorful, wrapped things under the tree shrinks. 

Finn gets me nice socks, Rey made a photo book of all our camping pictures from the last few years, Kaydel bought me another thong (which I refuse to show the room) and Poe printed out the dumbest quote and then framed it:  _ Don’t think of yourself as an ugly person, think of yourself as a beautiful monkey. _

“It’s inspirational!” he said after I threw a wad of tissue paper at him.

“Looks like one more…” Finn hunches under the tree, “...For Rose.”

“Who’s it from?” I take from him a little red box with a white ribbon.

“It doesn’t say.” He shrugs.

The size of the box alone has me flushing with absurd happiness. The shiny, extra-fancy wrapping paper and silk bow make my heart patter. 

It couldn’t be from… but… could it? 

I run my finger through the flap of the glossy red envelope and find a familiar script. Every swoop and whorl looks back at me, toying between romantic and formal. Just like a certain wry smile with deep, glittering green eyes.

“ _ For the woman who gave me everything. _ ”

He doesn’t even have to sign it. That’s how tightly he holds my pounding heart.

“Who’s it from, Rose?” Poe asks.

I ignore him, though I sense the eager eyes of everyone in the room.

When I shred the fine, thick paper and open the red velvet box, shining, glittery light floods my vision.

“Rose…” Rey murmurs breathlessly, “There’s a billion sparkles on your face right now.”

“I…” Words fail me; I cover my mouth with my hand.

“What is it?” Finn slides to the edge of his seat.

I cough out an incredulous, dry laugh and shake my head.

“Go on, then,” Kaydel prods. “We’re waiting!”

Slowly, as if it will break, (which is stupid, because they literally use these things to cut steel) I set the box on my lap and carefully lift my present off of its curved silk cushion.

“Holy…”

“Oh my…”

“That costs more than a car.”

Hanging from each of my fingers is a diamond collar necklace, a frothy spray of cascading stones strung like a glittering sunburst. I’m lost in its soft little clinks and iridescent, winking glow.  _ I like you _ , he’d said. The understatement of the year.

“Bitch, I bet he didn’t even finance that,” Kaydel crows. “Straight cash, mothafucka...”

I get up from my seat without a word and stride toward the hallway.

“Rose?” Rey calls after me, sounding worried.

“I’m ok!” I smile over my shoulder. “I just wanna try it on in the mirror!”

Skittering into the bathroom, I trip on the deep-pile vintage rug and catch myself on the pedestal sink, clutching the porcelain breathlessly. The gilded, round mirror -so precocious in its Southern gaudiness- holds my image like a prize. 

The girl looking back at me flushes with happiness, her eyes sparkle like gemstones, but there’s a depth there. The sadness that once hollowed the edges of my face doesn’t look so worn and haggard, it's more… I dunno… wise, or something. I guess I can embrace that. 

Maybe even celebrate it. The necklace tangled up in my fingers glints, beckoning. 

I fasten it around my neck and beam at my glittery reflection. 

My phone buzzes in my back pocket. “Unknown number” my screen reads, but I already know who it is.

“ _ Have you opened your gift?” _

I grin as I type out the reply.

“ _ It’s gorgeous, the most incredible thing I’ve ever received. Thank you.” _

The three little dots hop teasingly on his side of the text thread, I watch them with baited breath.

“ _ I would argue that you gave me the most gorgeous, incredible thing two nights ago. _ ”

I bite my tongue to keep from screaming.

“ _ Is it really a contest? Because I’d rather not start a relationship with my dream guy by arguing.” _

His reply appears right away.

“ _ Enough of that, Miss Tico. Come outside at once. _ ”

I laugh, tapping out my answer as I dash for the door.

“ _ Yes, sir. _ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @No_big_deal, I hope your holiday week was restful and renewing. Just like everybody in this story is saying to Rose, you are not alone. Even though this year was lonely and weird, I hope you feel surrounded from afar by this fun group of writers. You are a delightful writer and a wonderful human. Happy New Year!
> 
> Thanks for reading, friends. Tell me what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this story, read more [here.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_desk_fairy/)
> 
> Find me at [Tumblr](%E2%80%9C)


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